


Appreciation of the Solar System

by panickedbee



Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Anal Sex, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Fluff, Johnlock - Freeform, M/M, Masturbation, Miracles, POV Sherlock Holmes, Pining, Post-Reichenbach, Resolved Sexual Tension, Romance, Sherlock Holmes and Feelings, au-ish, kind of a s3 fix-it, pre-wedding
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-21
Updated: 2016-07-18
Packaged: 2018-04-16 12:52:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 8
Words: 27,639
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4625994
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/panickedbee/pseuds/panickedbee
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sherlock's emotional state is a mess since he came back from the dead, especially since John is about to get married to a woman who seems to be the complete opposite of him. He pities himself for all the things John has done to his heart and everything seems so pointless. Until a wish from a shooting star, ridiculing everything Sherlock has believed in, appears to have the power to turn his whole life around...</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Twinkle, Twinkle

Sherlock and John are running through the next dim lighted alley until they come to a stop, eventually. John's first reaction, after having chased a very athletic murder suspect through half of London's streets again, is a brace of his arms on his knees and a gasp for air.  
  
"Dammit!"  
  
John's panting is the only noise to perceive in those first moments of adrenaline and blood pumping. They don't do this anymore, he is a bit out of practice. What has surprised him a little is Sherlock's hard breathing, which the man tries to hide. Although he has the advantage of his height, he could never catch up with him this time. (And the long legs certainly are an unfair advantage, he had tried to argue with him about that once, the fact that Sherlock could always point out his friend's shortness but didn't bother to take a bit of a slower pace from time to time. _Back then_.)  
  
It is so quiet when no one makes a move. Sherlock tries to choke down what feels like dust in his dry throat, and it would make him cough. It's an almost biting pain to prevent himself from letting out the hard breath that got caught in his lungs. The running has caused his heart to knock perceptibly fast against the inside of his chest and the cage of ribs, so that he fears it might be heard and echoed in the dark alley, instead of just in his own ears.  
  
He doesn't know what it is that makes him feel so afraid of showing exhaustion and maybe a slight disappointment due to the former course of tonight's events. Perhaps it's just his own commitment to being human once more that scares him. Being vulnerable, instead of indestructible, and much worse: with John here to witness it all. Of course, he knows that he is an emotional human being, the occurrences of the last months have made this more than clear to him. He only wishes to at least be spared the humiliation of revealing to anyone else exactly _how_ human and emotional he really is. Lies to lies, details to details.  
  
"I'm sorry, Sherlock."  
  
Sherlock thinks he must have misheard. That it might be possible that this wasn't, maybe, maybe it wasn't John's voice which has just spoken to him out of the dark. But he knows that it was, oh, out of thousands, millions of various voices, John's - and he is more than positive of that - he would always recognise.  
  
But did he say sorry? No, this is all wrong! John has nothing to feel sorry for, it's all Sherlock's fault. And yes, he admits it. Because he has to, and because it's the truth. Running through London in the middle of the night, taking John with him and get absolutely nothing out of it, because he _failed,_ is all on his account. He is the one having made a mistake! He chose the wrong direction, and of course the suspect did not miss the opportunity to run out of their reach again, his chance to flee. Not something an innocent man would do either, so this failure is even the more fatal.  
  
_Failure_. The word spins round and round all over again before his inner eye and it makes him feel sick. He miscalculated and his instincts have failed him. Like they do these days, whenever John is close to him. He even was selfish enough to insist on John, wanting to get him out of his dull almost-married everyday life to spend time with him. If Sherlock was going to feel bad and horrible for making such a mistake, John is not allowed to feel the same. He deserves to feel better. Otherwise, most of his own suffering would have no use at all.  
  
To think about this again almost hurts a little. That John could think he has done something wrong, something disappointing, something to be sorry for. _Empathy_. Oh, how pathetic he has become. Maybe this could be a reason for John to apologise for. Having stolen the heart of a man, who has once lived for cold reason and work, when he has no use for it anyway. No, Sherlock already feels worse for having thought such a thing. It is his own fault after all. All of it. He got involved. He should've known better than to let his stupid heart rule his head.  
  
It has been predictable, after all. Something so dulled as his own heart would easily get above itself after having had only a little taste of this big brain of his. Now it would never get enough. It would plant itself inside of his mind (it already has), influence his thinking capacity and rebuild everything. Until all that would remain of Sherlock then is a sentimental mess who never gets what he wants.  
  
He shakes his head in disbelieve. "What? Why would you say that? You didn't do anything-"  
  
John interrupts him. He is standing upright again, looking at Sherlock. "No, I could've-"  
  
He pauses in the middle of the sentence and lets his gaze wander through the night. His eyebrows come closer together, and his lips form a thinner line, as if looking sceptical, but Sherlock knows better as to interpret this expression as uncertainty. He is searching for words, apparently. So isn't sure about it either. Just that _it_ could be anything.  
  
"I think I could've caught him. When he was running around the corner, that could've been the moment."  
  
Silence goes on from there.  
  
Sherlock doesn't know why he can't hear himself speak up again. He always makes sure the last word of a conversation, of an argument, it can be nothing more than a friendly discussion, but the very last word must be on his tongue. Not this time. Because everything is so different with John and he knows it. They know it. Which is why they are gracefully listening to the rare silence in a darkened alley.  
  
John must have noticed that Sherlock is staring at him. Question remains, however, if he also catches a glimpse of _how_ he looks at him. The man probably has no idea himself that in this very moment even the most untrained observant could read everything out of his face. Sherlock seems as if in pain, eyebrows slightly drawn together, eyes not piercing, not even curious, lips parted slightly, as though this smart mouth of his would so like to say something clever. Oh, and would John also see that said mouth has absolutely nothing clever to say this time?  
  
John probably sees what he wants to see, and there might be truth in his suggestion - that his friend has just been caught off in the middle of a sentence he had not bothered vocalising. And curious as John was, he naturally started thinking about it for a moment. The things Sherlock would be likely saying.  
  
(A deduction - no, there was nothing to deduce here, and he wouldn't hold it back either - why should he?, he knows John always listens to him being brilliant. Something else then - a comment, no again - an objection, yes, way more likely in this context. But why not say it out loud, why just stare at him instead? Oh, because he doesn't want to hurt John, doesn't want to start an argument. Well, that's very... nice. Unexpected, but nice all the same ...)  
  
John just has to get used to this new side of Sherlock, is all. The sentimental, the careful, the _caring_ side of him. He knows it has always been there, but to see the detective display his emotions almost without any protest - on the surface - is still a bit unusual, if not overwhelming at times. Now is a time to be overwhelmed a little, not for John but for Sherlock instead. He doesn't want to have this conversation. Yet, he so very much wants to make it clear to John that it is not his fault. That it never was and never would be. That, in fact, it always was Sherlock, because Sherlock is useless and imperfect and he makes too many _damn_ mistakes all the time.  
  
There it is. The mask slowly drops and Sherlock Holmes is left stripped and naked. For a few moments only, of course. But all those seconds are enough, and they feel like hours with both of them just looking at each other. It is different. It is sad and to realise that again and again, and not being able to do anything about it, hurts.  
  
Sherlock does notice that John has stopped focussing on him, and that he instead keeps his gaze up to the dark blue, the dim clouded sky of the night. Maybe he is watching stars, or something else he himself doesn't know anything about. Although this is not quite true.  
  
He knows that the shape of the universe looks quite like a brain cell. He knows that a full moon is nine times brighter than a half moon. He knows space is not a complete vacuum, because there are about three atoms per cubic metre of space, and that there are as many oxygen atoms in a breath as there are breaths of air in the atmosphere. He knows that the sun burns hundreds of tons of hydrogen every second. He knows that Saturn is the only planet of all planets in the solar system that would float on water. He knows that the universe is rarely so lazy. (Not now - go away, Mycroft!)  
  
And without having to follow John's act of looking up, he also knows that eight thousand stars are visible with naked eye from earth, four thousand in each hemisphere, two thousand at daylight, two thousand at night. Also, that every star which is to be seen could already be dead when its portrayal reaches the eye. Just an illusion.  
  
Sherlock has never cared much about the solar system before.  
  
"Sherlock?"  
  
John is still not looking down. There is a reason for this, apparently, and he wouldn't have to wait long to open his cloudy mind up and give in to the things he should've seen sooner. "Look up."  
  
Sherlock just silently obeys and does as he is told without thinking about it twice. Because it's John.  
  
But what he can see in the sky is more than a little unexpected. There are stars up there, yes, millions of stars he would usually never notice. Without John he would never care.

He feels so small. Seconds elapse and he keeps on staring into the sky, starts to find himself trying to count stars, trying to disguise his attempts with logic. Trying to calculate if it is really possible for him to see millions of stars at the same time, when he has just established that it isn't, that it doesn't even come close. And yet, he can't get over the feeling that if he would have the time, he would count every single star to prove himself wrong.  
  
He doesn't know that he is staring up for almost a minute without thinking anything at all. His eyes are sparkling in a light azure, they're alive and liquid. His mouth hangs open just a bit. Mesmerising. But he gets thrown out of this blissful state when one of the stars he is looking at (number fifty-five, fifty-six, fifty-seven!) moves. He thinks it might just be a plane, but he is wrong. It doesn't move, it's falling! Falling from the sky in one long, white line until it disappears in the air. A few centimetres from his point of view another one falls as if to follow his friend and burn to death.  
  
Wide eyed, Sherlock's head turns in John's direction who is already looking at him, smiling warmly.  
  
"John, did you see that?"  
  
He is surprised about the outcome of his own voice - so astonished, so innocent. Like a child witnessing the first snowfall of winter.  
  
"Yes, that's what I was trying to show you, Sherlock."  
  
John's gaze is open and he smiles up at him. Sherlock is so lost in this dark blue eyes of his, shining and sparkling ridiculously beautiful, reflecting the light of the stars. He tries to focus on the evenly dark sky again, because intense staring at each other in an alley by night is not something John would embrace, he thinks. But the sky, yes, it is almost as fascinating. He has never felt all this: all this freedom. Never has he been truly free, and he knows he isn't now. He is a complete prisoner in his own head, which has him under its full, brutal control at all times. But right now, it is freedom.  
  
He can just barely believe what his eyes are trying to make him understand, he cannot face it, and yet he wants to never look down again. He is feeling so incredibly small.

He is here, under the horizon. Under the whole world. Under possibilities and futures and, _most incredibly_ , universes and the sun is there and the moon is there. John is there. John is not up there, he is down here with him, but he could be. John could be up there, could be his whole universe. The only solar system he has ever cared for: John Watson - a whole different universe in itself. How can he be like this? How can anyone stand him without feeling like John was swallowing them whole?  
  
And once again Sherlock thinks that Mary doesn't realise how lucky she is.  
  
He wants to never look down again. Because he can barely stand the whole universe above him, but he is absolutely on a loss when it comes to John Watson right here, right next to him. Sherlock knows that John is looking at him, instead of the events the sky would have to offer. He starts to feel insecure, slowly embarrassed, because he also knows how childish his expression must look like. His eyes wide, his mouth slightly open. He can't help himself.  
  
Again, he is drawn to the falling stars, another one, another one, and every time his heart misses a beat. The stars are falling, is all he can think of, and admire it all over again. After a while, he really cannot help himself anymore. He has to ask.  
  
"You have never seen this before, have you?" It is John's voice startling him instead, so soft and so quiet. Sherlock can only shake his head.  
  
"John ... why is this?" Now it is his own voice that surprised him. Or rather the lack of it. The usual rumbling washed away, only a quiet breathing remained. So quiet.  
  
"I've never seen so many at once. Must be some kind of event, or something,“ John says.  
  
Sherlock hasn't looked down yet, but he knows that John is not looking at him any longer. He does not feel the warmth of his eyes, as sentimental and illogical as this sounds. He coughs once before speaking up. "No, I mean ... what are they? Why are they falling?"  
  
This time, he can actually hear John moving his head so quickly and watching him with astonishment. "Wait, you mean ... you don't know anything about shooting stars?"  
  
Sherlock's embarrassment increases and he can feel himself getting warmer at the knowledge of not knowing, and the knowledge of John knowing that he doesn't know. But as their eyes meet once again, John is still smiling as warmly and openly. This time, Sherlock's heart misses a few beats. His mask has fallen with the first star's death.  
  
"You really meant the 'not caring about the solar system' thing, didn't you?"  
  
It isn't that John had not believed him _back then_. But having a man as clever, as brilliant and intelligent as Sherlock Holmes right in front of him who doesn't know, or rather doesn't care, about something as big as the solar system, has always fascinated him. He will never stop being able to do this to him.  
  
Sherlock swallows, and his throat is sandpaper, rough and uneven. John is making fun of him now? No, he wouldn't. He has made it clear to him right from the start that there are things he simply is not interested in having them in his mindpalace. Nevertheless, he feels a sort of guilt for not having looked _everything_ up in all these years. John thinks it matters. This man is influencing him _too much, too much, too bloody much._  
  
"So ...", he coughs awkwardly. "Tell me something about shooting stars then."  
  
John makes a funny face now, a surprised one, as if he cannot quite believe what the man in front of him has just asked. As rarely as it occurs that Sherlock asks for something he wants to have, instead of just taking it or just finding another way to get it, witnessing a Sherlock who is asking for something because he wants to be _enlightened_... that's as close to admitting he doesn't know it better for once as it will ever get, possibly.  
  
John clears his throat before he dares to give a well-wrought answer. What comes out is a slightly baffled _Well_ and he reconsiders his choice of words again. Being the one to be observed by Sherlock Holmes is far from new to John, of course - although they didn't get to stare at each other for a very long time now, it's either inappropriate with other people around, or just awkward, given the big, tangled _situation_ they found themselves in since Sherlock came back.

But being the one to be observed by an honest, openly interested Sherlock, who seems to really want to know something about stars ... John obviously doesn't want to let him down on that. This man can be like a real child sometimes, it's rather lovely. He shouldn't get lost in his own thoughts now, though. Sherlock can be lovely and innocent, but he is still like impatience himself.  
  
"Actually, I think this is more of a meteor shower. I mean, there are lots of them up there. Haven't seen something like that in decades. Maybe we're having a special night or..." John lets his gaze wander to the brilliant view he is talking about. He begins to feel much less pressured when he is avoiding thinking about being the centre of Sherlock's attention. But soon, Sherlock follows his lead and watches the sky just as closely. _A special night indeed_.

It warms up his heart at the thought of them just standing next to each other, watching stars. How despicably romantic. But far worse than this are the things Sherlock always leaves unsaid. Because the truth is: John could never disappoint him when he's being clever. Not because his expectations aren't very high, no, it is because he truly believes that John is cleverer than the rest. He is his conductor of light for a reason, after all.  
  
And when John speaks again, his voice is so calming, so smooth that Sherlock wants to declare every single person who would not feel the urge to drown themselves in this voice out of their mind. He listens very closely when John continues.

"Meteor showers are events like this, where meteoroids are entering our atmosphere. But most of them could never reach the ground, you see, 'cause they are so fast and small that they just burn and combust. It looks like they'd disappear and you'll ask yourself where they're going. That's the myth behind it, actually. They say if you see a shooting star you shall think of something you wish for, and it will come true."  
  
While John kept on talking, Sherlock's eyes have found him again, and this time he just watches. He lets himself be amazed, he allows himself to just feel. It's a strong, steady feeling and for the first time after all, all this time that he has subconsciously felt it now, it doesn't scare him. It's progress, he thinks, slow, exhaustingly little progress, but it's alright. It's all fine. He's still unhappy. But when has he ever been entirely not unhappy?  
  
John smiles at him, and Sherlock swallows. He can't get over the feeling that he has missed something. Was it something John has said while he wasn't paying attention for a few moments? Was it a mocking smile? Mocking Sherlock for having stared at him again? Insecurity creeps up his neck and he hates himself for having being fooled by his emotions again. Hatred is also an emotion. A very, very dangerously strong emotion. John seems to notice him struggling, as his smile disappears for a second, and he adjusts himself before going for a more encouraging smile this time. It works better.  
  
"Care to make a wish?" John's expression almost gains something near sarcasm, and Sherlock would've chuckled, because he absolutely understands. They both know him very well, it should be crystal clear that Sherlock doesn't believe in such nonsense. Ghosts, fairy tales, miracles, destiny. If it's not proven, he doubts - if he can't prove it himself, he's bored. So he simply terms it as nonsense and doesn't have to let those myths take up useful space in his head.

It's sarcasm with which John amusingly asks him if he would _care to make a wish_ , because Sherlock doesn't believe in wishes that come true, and even if he did, what would he want to have from some sort of falling star, high up on the horizon? John doesn't have an answer, and that unsettles him, so he tries to hide himself behind a thick brick wall out of sarcasm. This is one of Sherlock's techniques, actually.  
  
He does. Sherlock does _care_. To make a wish. He doesn't know yet, could gladly put it away, along with a chuckle, actually. It's a joke. As long as he does not realise that it isn't. Sherlock starts to see it now, and the innocent chuckle dies in his throat.

He would _love_ to make a wish. He would want a thousand wishes, slowly changing everything that has ever gone wrong. A thousand wishes from a thousand stars, because if there aren't a million up there, then he wants a thousand at least.  
  
Sherlock swallows down the big lies he was going to tell John. ( _"There are no such things as miracles, John, why would I care?", "You know I don't believe in the solar system, except for its obvious existence, John, don't be ridiculous."_ )

He swallows them down and hides them deep inside his mindpalace, in a room he'll hopefully never open. It hurts to lie to John, lie to himself. Tonight, everything seems to hurt. As if the stars did break his shield down, as if the ash of dying meteors had flown by to destroy an unbreakable fassade, until Sherlock Holmes is stripped down and ripped open. He shakes his head. Don't. Be. Ridiculous.  
  
So he doesn't say anything. Instead he is looking at John again, watching him watching the stars, and he takes a deep breath of relief. John hasn't seen his dying chuckle, his swallowed lies. John is nervous and insecure himself tonight, but Sherlock doesn't see that. He just sees a strong soldier having his head held high. A tower of strength, as solid as a rock in the middle of a storm. He isn't able to observe anything, actually, he can only see and all his senses betray him.

He cannot make a wish. He does not want to make a wish, he would throw away his thousand wishes, because the one thing he really wants will never come true. Sherlock looks like a broken man. A broken man left alone in a dark alley. Beneath heaven's tent, shooting stars, next to the man he loves. He stares at him in a way a widow would look at her dead husband's coffin at a funeral, he looks as though John Watson had died right in front of him, in the middle of this beautiful night, and it is the most tragic, heartbreaking, metaphorical portray of the mess Sherlock has become.  
  
He wants John. He wants John in every sense of this word. All his life he has never understood that there could be something he would really want with every cell of his body, so much it physically pains him. Never has he searched for it, never has he believed.

But in a way, he has something in common with Moriarty, although his stomach aches for thinking this. He had searched for a distraction. Always. Life bored him, people bored him, why couldn't he be ordinary? Why did there have to be someone telling him he was brilliant, the little bit of extra in the ordinary? Not boring him. Tearing him to pieces.

Sherlock feels so dramatic right now, he wants to peel off all his skin and leave his human shell, it's all too heavy. Let him die.  
  
He doesn't really want that. He wants John Watson. In every sense. And since there aren't such things as miracles, he is not still staring at him. He is absolutely not still hopelessly in love with this man, and of course he doesn't wish for One. More. Miracle.  
  
Why would he care?


	2. Little Star

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John doesn't let him finish any of his thoughts. He leans down ever so slowly, until his right elbow is propped next to Sherlock's dark curls, which make an untamed mess on the pillow. His other hand, Sherlock notices as his gaze involuntarily drops between John's legs when he gets even closer, secures the towel around his waist, but it slides down a little more. He takes in a shuddering breath and his eyes widen as John's fall close.

Sherlock blinks slowly while morning light forces him to close his eyes again. His every thought is limited due to the confusion of being awake so suddenly, and he thinks the sun might have crept into this room to blind him and only him, forever.

He stretches all his limbs and rolls onto his side to throw an arm over his eyes. In his unconscious state he tries to pull the covers up once more, but he's puzzled for a moment when he realises that he isn't wearing any clothes. The bedsheets around the lower part of his body feel warm and tender. They feel so close without any layers between the fabric and his own skin, and he lets out a soft breath of contentment while his head is sinking deeper into the pillow.  
  
Sherlock is close to the edge of unconsciousness again. He feels how little warm bits of sunlight are touching the back of his neck like feathers, and the longer his mind stays in this half-awake state, the sharper his other senses seem to get when his eyes are closed. His ears register a sudden squeak and the absence of the swooshing noise he hadn't even notice was there before.

He inhales deeply and lets out a pleased sigh as he finds his whole body react to the smell around him. The smell of burning firewood and windy seacoasts, of exotic deodorant that's biting like a dog without any teeth and the shallow, masculine attendance of sweat. Of calming contradictions and the most familiar mixtures which complexities stimulate Sherlock's hungry mind.

His hands search the bed absentmindedly and eventually grasp a large piece of cotton that turns out to be one of John's striped jumpers. But Sherlock doesn't know that yet. His subconscious probably knows, but it wouldn't dare telling him now. It's too distracted by the sensation of the soft piece of clothing Sherlock is currently burying his face in, and too fascinated by the effects the feeling has on him.  
  
Only seconds later, he hears how the bathroom door quietly closes and steps coming closer, but he just tries to press his head deeper into the blue fabric. A low chuckle finally throws him out of his sleepy state. Because he recognises the voice and suddenly he is wide awake and the smell around him is even stronger than before.

He thinks he's going mad with how much he likes it, and he has only just realised that it is John's jumper he is holding there in his arms. Also John's jumper that gets now pulled out of his hands. Sherlock tries to keep it over his head to protect him from the bad real world, he tries to fight for it, but sleep has weakened his muscles and soon the sun is blinding him again.  
  
"What are you doing with this?" A bemused voice above him makes his eyes snap open.  
  
"John?" He asks dumbfolded, as if he would have expected someone else entirely.  
  
Confusion draws itself all over Sherlock's sleepy, pale face, right from the gap between the incredible pair of lips to the line just above his nose. John is standing next to his bed - why the hell would he? - smiling down on him softly. Apart from the fact that Sherlock is tangled in nothing but a white bed sheet (déjà vu of some sorts), John himself is naked, covered only by a towel around his hips - low, very low. Sherlock knows his mouth is watering as the world appears to stop for the exact amount of time it takes him to run his sharp, but today less focused, eyes all the way down John's body.  
  
Starting from his short dark blond hair where lots of grey strands are lurking through, fighting for a complete takeover, the colour has clearly brightened over the years. Sherlock can't tell if it might have been all the stress and the bad memories which have washed most of the gold away and replaced it with silver, but he shoves those ugly thoughts off him and decides that John's hair has never looked better. It is still wet and wild from the shower that has been taken. (Shower? Yes, obviously, very obvious – he's too slow).

Lowering his gaze just a little, he has already found something new to mesmerise him. John's dark blue eyes, pupils slightly dilated, lines around them like there used to be when he was laughing (so long have they not _laughed_ together), only now he is smiling broadly, almost showing teeth. He looks down on him with pure affection and Sherlock feels naked. (He is naked. Did he forget?) Absolutely exposed.  
  
Little drops of water are running down his smooth jawline (recently shaven) and Sherlock's eyes cannot help but follow one of them all the way down the muscular neck (pulse visible) until it disappears beneath the crook of neck and shoulder blades, nestles above his collarbone. John's skin is less tanned from his chest down, nipples slightly hard from the sudden change of temperature in this room in opposite to the steaming shower.

His abs are still clearly visible, although it is also clear that he isn't exercising anymore (most married men don't do that anymore, so he heard), his lower stomach indicates a little bit of pudge. Just below his navel grows a lightly golden line of hair, disappearing somewhere between his hipbones into the area only hidden by a white towel.

Sherlock doesn't quite dare to drop his gaze yet a little lower now, it's way too much data already and he can't remember ever having been so confused by something so simple. And he hasn't even asked the important questions yet. What is John doing in his bedroom? Why is he naked and wet? (Shower. Shower!) Why is _Sherlock_ naked and how did he get here?

John doesn't let him finish any of his thoughts. He leans down ever so slowly, until his right elbow is propped next to Sherlock's dark curls, which make an untamed mess on the pillow. His other hand, Sherlock notices as his gaze involuntarily drops between John's legs when he gets even closer, secures the towel around his waist, but it slides down a little more. He takes in a shuddering breath and his eyes widen as John's fall close.

The kiss that follows takes all the air from his lungs, makes his heart stop with one last _thump,_ before all the birds outside stop in their motion. _Won't they fall?_ , a sceptical, quiet voice wonders somewhere in the back of Sherlock's head, but he shoots it down and for a short, breathtaking moment his mind just shuts. It's so quiet, a quiet Sherlock cannot remember having experienced for … ever, actually. And it's so, _so_ relaxing. He wants to drown in it and die.

This is the moment his senses activate again. First, a soft sort of humming in his ears, until he starts hearing again, and what he hears is the slow, wet slide of lips. Then the exchange of breath, of low sighs he later realises are his own.

When Sherlock starts feeling, his whole body tenses for a second. It's all too much. His lips tingle with sensation, move on their own, every time John pulls back a bit, they push. There is a pleasant pain that makes his limbs feel numb when John holds his bottom lip between his teeth and _sucks._ This time, Sherlock knows immediately where the startled moan comes from, and he knows he craves for more. Without thinking, he opens his mouth and John follows in an instant, like a choreography performed a thousand times, lets his tongue push against his own, let them battle for dominance. Although Sherlock doesn't stand a chance in the battle, he doesn't care in the slightest.

The kiss is still slow, still so passionate, and Sherlock experiences a moment where he is actually convinced he might just fall out of the clouds, as John pulls back with a hearable smack. Sherlock's eyelids flutter and his expression must scream confusion, because John's grin is wider than should be possible. In a swift motion, he leans forward again and kisses the top of his nose so utterly sweet that Sherlock almost breaks. „Good morning,“ he murmurs, voice low and thick with something else than sleep.

Sherlock doesn't notice that John has left him behind, not until he hears his voice from out of the kitchen, telling him breakfast is ready. If he would be able to, he would have heard the smug tone in John's voice, too.

When he hears the first bird chirp again, indicating the birth of a new day, he can finally breathe. Sherlock just starts blinking a lot.

 

Sherlock takes a long shower after this incident. No, not because he has to take care of something. (Well, technically yes, but not in the good way. John was still in the kitchen after all and he had to cool down.)  
He has to think. He cannot remember what he did yesterday. Damn, he can't even remember going to bed at all. Yet, there has been clear evidence of a naked John coming out of this very shower and kissing him awake. And the evidence has not only been under his blanket but under John's thin towel, too.  
  
God. And he can still smell him. Ridiculous actually, but his senses tell him John has been in here earlier, and the thought makes him almost dizzy. He always told himself he was, with all his heart and soul, a rationalist. But this uncontrollable body urges are on their best way of taking over him. All his shields seem to be down. Leaving him weak and defenceless. Suddenly, he gets very angry with himself. Which is also an emotion. A never ending circle.  
  
By now, he has stepped out of the shower and he's looking at his own reflection in the mirror. He hears John doing something in the kitchen. (Washing the dishes, maybe? He's too good for this world.) So John still being here must mean that he hasn't just imagined all of this, right? He hasn't gone crazy and his mind hasn't been poisoned due to an excessive drug abuse. And, although the last option is not as easy to dismiss as he'd like it to be, as he looks at himself, the only thing he can see there is the evidence of a very relaxing sleep within the last twelve hours and a pair of well-kissed lips. His skin flushes lightly at this thought. _Well-kissed by John Watson._  
  
What does John think he's doing?  
  
"Sherlock?"  
  
Sherlock's heart starts pounding faster at this. For God's sake, that organ is supposed to keep him alive, not to kill him by increasing his blood pressure. Stupid. But John is as far from a great help with this as it gets. The bloody doctor.  
  
"Breakfast is getting cold. If you don't come out there soon, I'm going to get you."  
  
Sherlock's eyes quickly snap from the door to the face in the mirror that suddenly looks back at him full of insecurity.  
  
"But when I'm finished with you, it will definitely be cold."  
  
Insecurity turns into panic, and his face looks even paler than would be considered healthy. How would he be supposed to go out there? John is out there, possibly naked and possibly still manipulated by some sort of higher power he never dared to believe in, but if you eliminate the impossible then-

Maybe he should really brush his teeth.  
  
And so he does brush his teeth, quietly and a little bit calmer, as if some bit of minty paste on top of a wetted toothbrush would be a sort of solution to at least one of his problems. Well, it actually could be, should John decide that he wants to kiss him again … The warm, fluffy sensation in his chest starts to return, and he can feel how a soft shade of pink lays itself on top of his cheekbones. Oh no.  
  
The bathroom door flings open and Sherlock almost takes a hit to the head. He steps back a bit and gulps as he locks eyes with John. His grin could be described as _dangerous._ He looks like he was planning to eat him alive. A small part buried deep in the back of his head jumps very delighted at this thought. He tries to ignore this. Hard.  
  
John is properly dressed by now, at least. As opposed to Sherlock himself, who is still naked and partly wet, which he gets reminded of again as a mild breeze, caused through the now open door, cools the skin around his legs.

"John, what are you doing here?" Sherlock asks, meaning the whole situation, the whole odd morning and the confusing behaviour, and he hopes he could finally wake up from this dream. He just wants his defences back.

John definitely eyes him up and down and up and down again, and he definitely looks pleased with what he sees. Why does this cause a rather pleasant twitch in Sherlock's gut?

"Serving you breakfast, so you won't starve eventually. Aren't you the observant one of us?" John says, meaning this right here and right now, as if everything about this belonged to a typical morning routine of them. Incredible.  
  
He can only barely open his mouth until John invades his personal space, still grinning smugly, getting Sherlock to lose his voice (which in itself is something to get admired for, to be honest) and tilts his head a little.  
  
"I did warn you," he murmurs low and playfully, coming even closer.  
  
Sherlock can't do anything, not one thing at all but close his eyes and suck in a sharp breath when John presses his clothed chest against Sherlock's flushed skin, and suddenly he has two hands full of his lovely bottom and _squeezes_. For a second or two his head just swims somewhere far away from here, and he doesn't know if his body has simply fallen to the ground like a puppet whose strings got cut, or if it plans to live life without him from now on, nor does he care, he thinks, if he can only keep feeling like this forever.  
  
Then his eyes snap open widely, and he stares into John's dark blue sea, blinks a few times and his gaze drops to John's lips. And he can't ignore how his blood heads south, how a sweet little twinge in his gut makes him want to thrust his hips and press himself against him. Makes him _want_. Simply want. He's scared by the intensity of this feeling.  
  
John seems to sense something, for his smile loses its smugness and swaps it with something that is not quite worry and not quite pity, but something in between.  
  
His hands slide up Sherlock's back like he was afraid of breaking him, and Sherlock doesn't know if he should be annoyed or flattered, until his fingers run through soft, dark curls and teasingly pull on some of the longer strands.  
  
Sherlock shivers at this and he feels goosebumps running down his arms. There are shivers, running down his spine, there are sparks trying to blind him, and his heart beats and beats so fast he can't move.  
  
John begins to quietly whisper into his ear, as one of his hands slips downwards again, rests on his hip. "As much as I like this ..." He gently bites Sherlock's earlobe, who can't help the gasping and leaning in further. "... which is a lot ..." He starts kissing the skin behind his ear, holding him in place with his grip now at the back of his neck.  
  
John hums, seemingly pleased with himself, as Sherlock's head falls back and a low groan escapes his throat. The twinge in his lower stomach grows stronger, and the wanting has long stopped scaring him.  
  
"I'm also ... very hungry ..." John is talking between kisses, "... and you will eat, too ... because I made this ... and I'll make you feel guilty if you don't."  
  
The pure need to kiss him again becomes almost inexplicable, and as Sherlock growls one more time, he opens his eyes and finally realises that they moved. John has guided them through the door right into the hallway between bedroom and kitchen. Sherlock's body seems to know which of the two he'd rather prefer going to right now.

He walks straight forward and presses John against the wall. He can see how his expression turns surprised and that his eyelids appear heavier while he looks at him expectantly. _He wants, too._  
  
Sherlock just craves for the physical closeness, he has stopped being able to think properly. But his heart does something that makes him shiver a little when he lays his head down on John's shoulder. His head is filled with pictures of them being together, looking at each other. It feels much less dangerous to just imagine what he has wanted for such a long time, rather than to embrace what is right in front of him. The sheer beauty of being together in _that_ way is already too much to bear in thought. He needs a break.

John holds him there, not saying anything about what is currently pressing into his abdomen. He feels so intimate, so well-known, so like the place he always wanted to belong to, but never quite understood how to get there. The place he could sometimes come to, curl up, press his face into the crook of a warm, muscular neck and cry.

Of course, he would never think of crying now. He isn't allowed to cry, never really has been.

"You okay?"

"John," he mumbles, trying to keep his voice from breaking, "I need you. I need you to know that I need you."

He hugs Sherlock tighter, and the atmosphere switches from steamy to sensual, but it's nice. Sherlock feels warm and protected and _free._ Like the time of letting go has come.

What the hell is just happening?


	3. How I Wonder

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Sherlock? Look at me."
> 
> He does. Sherlock looks at him, reacts when John calls his name, and there is this pure seriousness in John's gaze that is like steel, but only if steel can be liquid and warm. Warm, hot, liquid steel, and he means it. And he wants it. And that is just too much for Sherlock. So he has to kiss him right now.

They finally do have breakfast and John occupies himself with reading the papers. Pretending everything was normal. Is it normal? No. No, it isn't. Sherlock will end up mad if he doesn't put an end to this, this … what's the opposite of a nightmare?

His brain hurts. Not his head, no, he is ninety one percent sure that it actually must be his brain that hurts him, and he can feel it through the walls of that thick head of his.

John, of course, sees that he isn't eating, does he? He has to. As Sherlock, despite holding a buttered toast in front of his mouth for several minutes now, simply looks into the void absentmindedly, and he still feels quite exposed to, well, only the whole of the world. Although, he is aware of the fact that the whole of the world cannot see him right now. (No more hidden cameras in 221B, he checks up on that. Regularly. One could call it overreaction if it wasn't for certain _incidents_ as well as that overly protective brother of his.)

Not very helpful, though, as he doesn't care about the world in general, never has. He cares about John, only ever John, who is, unfortunately, the one sharing this space with him, and now he has finally drawn his attention. Goddamnit.

He has lowered his newspaper, so that he can give him a once-over, which makes Sherlock feel as naked as he just has been barely ten minutes ago. At least he did have the decency to put on a dressing gown (the blue one, his and John's favourite, he had deduced this quite a while ago), but right now that does not help at all.

"Something the matter?"

Sherlock opens his mouth, looking terrified for a second, before he tries relaxing his face. A sharp intake of breath. He tries to order some of his thoughts once again, for them to stand in line and build something that does actually make a tiny bit of sense, but oh, they are racing, his thoughts, and at the same time he feels so very slow. The outcome is simple, but it doesn't feel like he's phrased the right thought yet. "I just … don't understand."  
  
The look on John's face goes from very surprised to a bit more than just wicked within a half second. "Oh, please say that again," he growls, a grin on his lips. He appears kind of high. Maybe they all are. Or maybe it's just Sherlock. That's still a possibility, after all.  
  
He realises what he just said and closes his mouth, feeling suddenly self-conscious and vulnerable.  
  
"Talk stupid to me, Sherlock," John continues, voice still rough, and it's that kind of tone that would make Sherlock's knees buckle, weren't he sitting on the chair opposite him. Also, his insecurity is currently dominating, bringing with it a whole bag of other emotions he doesn't like in the slightest. He needs more data. Or rather, some data, any data, damn bloody something that he could use as a hint of an impossible explanation as to what the hell is going on with John.  
  
John, who apparently must have noticed his anxiety, finally gets the meaning of the look on Sherlock's face that tells him he is close to losing him and he will be drawn apart by the depths of his mind if he doesn't get him back to earth within the next minute. _Stable him. Ground him._

He has become rather good at reading his face, might not be as brilliant as Sherlock is, but he can at least claim proudly that he is good at _this._ Him. Right there in front of him, and sometimes the detective is like an open book to him. That is all he needs to have.  
  
"I'm sorry, I didn't mean it that way. Just joking around a bit, I know that's not always ..." He stops himself, having gained Sherlock's attention again, but the look in his eyes, the worry in his knitted brows causes him to focus on something other than a confused apology. He starts checking on him as a doctor.  
  
"Sherlock, what's wrong?"

John takes one of his hands and brings it to his mouth. The way he looks at him, almost pitiful. Sherlock wants to hate it. "Where are you right now?"  
  
Sherlock is back at the Landmarket. John (with a lot more facial hair, he almost forgot about that), an engagement ring in front of him, and this _look_ in his eyes. A flashback of a sudden convolution around his heart rushes through him, duller, but he still finds himself believing that it was a heart attack and the end of him.  
  
Skipping the part where he would draw a stupid moustache on his face and put on a bowtie, right up to the moment of _He is definitely going to, I've seen the ring box,_ right to the second he sees Mary smiling at John, and the pain would come at him in an instant as he put the memory pieces back together.

She is completely different. She is different from everyone else he has ever seen John date, and she is so smart and kind, caring and funny, short and shining bright, and she is dark, but on a whole different level. On a level John likes. In short, she is not like Sherlock at all.  
  
"What about- " he starts whispering, opening his eyes without knowing on what point he has closed them. " _Mary?_ "  
  
John lets go of his hand and just frowns at him for a moment, grinning a bit, because he is used to Sherlock being a little ... random. Grinning about himself still not being able to follow his train of thoughts. For Sherlock, on the other hand, that reaction is rather disturbing.  
  
"Who?"  
  
Sherlock's eyes widen like that of a helpless child. Rather disturbing a lot. "Mary? Mary, your ..."

 _Fiancée._ He cannot bring himself to say it out loud. Hell, he can barely even think it. And it was so obvious that they were going to get engaged – with dull, boring engagement rings and champagne – but Sherlock was actually looking forward to it for a while. He could organise it. He could compose for it. He could celebrate losing John forever, like the bloody drama queen he would never admit he is. He could dance. Teaching John how to dance, holding him. Being held.

And then, at the wedding, watching John holding her while he would play the song he wrote for them, officially, but in reality for John only, because he still feels like he doesn't even know Mary. But he wanted to, once. Until he realised that he can't compose a song about two other people being in love. He can only write songs about his own melancholy and call it a logical articulation of notes.

John is not quite sure what to do and starts looking at him a little perplexedly. "My … what exactly? What are you on about?"

Sherlock is gone again. He is lost within him self, somewhere else for more than a full minute, until he can feel fingers gently rubbing circles on the top of his knees and when he looks down, he sees John kneeling there, right by his side. He looks so worried and soft, Sherlock thinks he will melt then and there in his seat.

"Look," John says, and he almost whispers, "Sherlock, I just- I'm just not sure where you are right now, and I know you can be confusing sometimes, but are you- is that about a case? Is Mary a client or a murderer or is she …someone you want to forget?"

Yes. "What?"

"I just have the feeling that you're not really with me this morning, is all. And I don't like this feeling."

He runs his fingers farther up his skin, spreading his legs a bit as he leans down. Sherlock is still naked if it wouldn't be for the dressing gown, but that damn thing still makes him feel as if John can see everything of him, and it just feels as though John is touching every bit of him, as well. His legs fall open by themselves, and he has to grab the edges of the chair to hold himself upright.

John continues to murmur into his soft skin. "You know, sometimes it still feels like absence when you're in that big head of yours. I know you're here with me, but it's always unsettling if I know you're not there when I call your name."

Sherlock has no idea how to respond to this. He can't remember when he should have done this in the past few months, but damn, he cannot remember anything now and he doesn't know, he doesn't know, _he doesn't know_ why they are here. Right now. Together.

And then John goes in to place a kiss on the skin of his inner thigh and he shuts it. His brain shuts down and there is only sensation left.

Pure electricity sparks up the length of his body, creeps underneath his skin and stops to leave a hunger that takes place right below his stomach, shoots upwards to meet the heart. John kisses him again, almost without touching him at all, and the soft sensation kills him. He spreads his legs even wider and his robe cannot hide anything anymore, especially not after the belt falls open.

His head falls back and a loud moan escapes him, the prickling doesn't stop and he can clearly feel something twitch down there. This would be much too embarrassing, wouldn't he be too distracted by John's mouth which is currently climbing up his inner thigh, dragging another heavy breath out of him, another acceleration of heartbeats.

But Sherlock utterly, completely loses it when John shifts and the soft kisses grow into something that is anything and everything, but it is not innocent at all. He kneels between Sherlock's legs and (oh, the _sight_ alone!) grabs both of his thighs with such a determination that he could get bruises from it, covering his skin with open-mouthed kisses and starts licking closer to the area that would really be in need of a doctor very soon.

Sherlock pants audibly and feels instinctively drawn to run his hands through this short, silver hair he admired so much before. Then he stops for a second, dangerously close to coming to his senses.

Just as he realises that he has never touched John's hair before, but has always wanted to, and that he has never been kissed anything like this before, and never knew he could miss what he has never even dared himself to feel before.

He can't stand this, he can't comprehend this, and there is no way on earth that he could deserve this.

"Sherlock? Look at me."

He does. Sherlock looks at him, reacts when John calls his name, and there is this pure seriousness in John's gaze that is like steel, but only if steel can be liquid and warm. Warm, hot, liquid steel, and he means it. And he wants it. And that is just too much for Sherlock. So he has to kiss him right now.

John's other new superpower, apart from doing all of these things to him and _being here,_ appears to be reading his thoughts, because he braces himself on Sherlock's thighs now and pushes up to reach him, and Sherlock only has to bend down a little to cover this pair of lips with his own. Somehow, Sherlock doesn't understand how or why (the _why_ particularly related to his own existence and the possibility of this reality), John has managed to get up again during the kiss, and the observant detective just notices this as he places himself on top of his own lap.

John. Sitting on his lap. Kissing him. Sherlock suddenly growls loudly into his mouth, and John responds with a deep, content sigh as he lets their lips slide against each other and sends tingles down Sherlock's body, downwards, downwards, before he playfully captures his bottom lip between his teeth and Sherlock is utterly done with. He does not quite get John's preference for his bottom lip, but he honestly couldn't care less, so he involuntarily moans again and his tongue slips into John's mouth as though it was meant to be there.

It all feels like a competition to him, between his mind and his heart (it isn't quite impossible that his heart could have slid down a few inches), but he is not even interested in winning, because he cannot lose. He has it under control to be completely out of control and for a glorious second he can consciously throw himself into it, and he doesn't manage to pull himself back after doing so.

John presses himself tighter against Sherlock, lets his hands grab as many dark curls as he can, and their tongues are rubbing against each other, together in a slow rhythem. There is only silence around them, the flat is filled with the quiet, filthy noises of their wet mouths and the rustling of clothes, and soft, constant sighs of pleasure. Again Sherlock's naked chest rubs against John's clothed one, and he shouldn't like it. Shouldn't like the exposure, and being inferior, smaller and beneath. But damn, if it doesn't make him feel wanton and lightheaded, urges him to do things he has never thought himself capable of.

His hips twitch upwards, he desperately tries to create more friction through the fabric of John's jeans. By now, he groans with almost every exhale of breath. John straddles his thighs and presses him down to rub against him, giving them both what they need and not nearly enough. He can feel that John likes it, likes being on top of him, likes having the upper hand and taking control over Sherlock's pleasure, and _fuck_ , if this isn't a turn on.

Hearing John's sweet rumble next to his ear, the hot breath on his neck, followed by him biting his earlobe. Sherlock thinks the noise he just made might have been a little too loud and a little too high for him, but there is simply no time to be embarrassed, there is only time for him to swim on this wave of lust.

Pleasure pools in his lap, and he is harder than he can remember ever having been before, his skin so sensitive from the harsh material of John's jeans. He feels this strong urge building up inside him, leading him to think about ripping John's trousers off to feel his throbbing erection against his own, and _oh_ , he wants to see it. His cock twitches heavily just from imagining it.

He blindly reaches for John's face and presses their mouths together roughly, not quite meeting his lips, but he simply goes with it, kissing the corner of his mouth, his chin, the stubble on his cheeks, every now and then he has to stop for breathing and sighing loudly. He is blinded, absolutely blinded, just rolling his hips, pressing himself upwards, his eyes closed and his own mouth hanging open.

The ringing in his ears slowly fades as soon as he hears John whispering his name, but only moments later he realises that he is actually being addressed.

"Sherlock? I'm so, so sorry, but I think-"

Sherlock interrupts him by moaning again, louder this time, as the angle changes slightly, so that he is even closer now, closer to John's skin, to John's own heat, only separated through the fabric of their clothes. Sherlock doesn't care. He needs it.

John has closed his eyes to stop his mind from floating, because as much as he wants to, the timing is, as almost always with Sherlock, a bit not good.

"Sherlock, we- we've got to stop now, really... Hmmh..." Sherlock claims his mouth again by pressing his lips against it, feeling John's enthusiastic grunt when their tongues meet again.

He cannot remember ever having been so far out of his own comfort zone. Not that he wouldn't be comfortable right now, he is more than oblivious to all but one craving that his brain is aiming all its focus at. But he has never known that he could. That he would actually be able to distance himself so much from his pokerfaced, controlled, calculating persona that he has spent years and years to create around his frightened form.

All the fear and all the concern about his future and his past seems to be gone now, on vacation for the first time in over thirty years, leaving behind a man with a glowing core of desire filling him up, ever spreading like flames following the trace of spilled petrol.

He can only register the sight in front of him with a dizzy haze in front of his eyes, and he slowly blinks after John got off him and now roughly adjusts himself in his jeans.

When he is finally able to draw his gaze all the way up to John's face, they lock eyes and Shelock realises that the smirk on John's lips is meant for him.

"You look absolutely gorgeous like this, do you know that?"

He doesn't. Has no clue. If he wouldn't still be pretty invested in the simple task of gaining back his common sense, he would probably even feel very self-conscious and maybe think about sulking about it for at least a week. He must look embarrassing. How could he let John see him like this? How is he not disgusted or shocked by this sight? But in fact, he even looks only more turned on, and that makes something inside of Sherlock feel impossibly warm and sends a light shiver down his spine, knowing he has done this to John, knowing the hunger in that dark blue pair of eyes is meant for him, and with that thought all the rationality gets blown away once more in an instance.

"What?" He asks, a bit surprised at hearing his own voice so quiet and raspy, and that he is hearing it at all. John has said something to him, hasn't he? His lips have definitely moved, but Sherlock couldn't understand a single word he should have said.

John leans forward, suddenly much too close again and not close enough at all. He brushes the tip of his nose against Sherlock's snub nose, and it's so sweet that his mind couldn't possibly grasp the meaning of this gesture. "I said I really have to go now. You have no idea how many times I've been late because of you this month already, you handsome git."

Sherlock has to close his eyes, hoping the lack of one of his senses will help him breathe again, but now he becomes aware of how close they are and how warm and tender the touch of John's nose and forehead feels and how nice he smells, cheap soap and pheromones – something so utterly masculine, so unmistakably dangerous and familiar because it is all John – and how tempting it is to just rub his cheek against the soft strands of hair that are currently tickling the skin above his brow.

_Did he say I'm handsome?_

His eyes snap open again when the warmth is suddenly gone, and John is standing in the living room to collect his jacket and put on a pair of shoes. He comes back immediately, though, when he catches something confused and desperate in Sherlock's expression – a mixture that could look rather sad when applied to his face that consists of eyes too blue and weary and lips too pink and cheeks too flushed this morning.

There is something in the way he walks, and this is about as much as Sherlock is capable of taking in and making sense of at all, that is not quite the usual kind of walk and one of his inner voices (the one responsible for the blood streaming in his lower regions, perhaps?) whispers to him that this was also his fault.

John gives him a smile that tells the story of how much he does not want to go out there himself, and he bends down to kiss both of the blushing cheeks.

Just before he opens to door to disappear behind it, he turns around once more, a slightly wicked grin around his lips. "You could have a nice little shower 'til I'm back, don't you think, love?"

By the time the door has closed, Sherlock is sitting on the edge of the kitchen chair. Absolutely devastated. He couldn't possibly count as clothed anymore, the dressing gown open and half slipped off his shoulder, hair utterly ruffled, the skin between his legs still throbbing and demanding attention, face in his hands and his head feels simply fucked with.

 _Love?_ Love has killed him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Finally updated!  
> Somehow I think this is not nearly enough, but I won't put myself down because it doesn't help anyone... Excuses, excuses.  
> But I swear, I HAD to skip that shower scene for now, that made me struggle for ages, omg. I know this is the next thing I'll have to write, though. Send help.
> 
> Thanks for reading, as always. Feedback is appreciated (just like the solar system). How often can I bring that joke?


	4. What You Are

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> His whole body suddenly stills, though, as he hears someone whisper into his very skin, being so close that Sherlock could have sworn that it's coming right from the inside of his head. Which it does. He does. John's smooth voice is talking to him, soothing him, and at the same time it lets lust grow into longing. He misses him. He misses John like air, because he still thinks he can't get enough of it into his lungs, and even though his mind is clouded he still feels his absence.

That's how Sherlock finds himself behind the shower curtain for the second time this morning. His racing brain gained some blood back already, desperately trying to work out what is happening and how and why and that slowly but surely gives Sherlock a headache. The hot water doesn't help, only in making him dizzy and his sight blurry. He lets his body stumble forward a bit, his cheek pressed against the cool tiles and his mouth hanging open.

John has kissed him. John has kissed him on multiple occasions today, more times than would be acceptable to write off as a mistake or an accident. And Sherlock has kissed him, absolutely out of his own control. This should scare him more. They have been kissing – _snogging!_ \- in the middle of the kitchen and now John is gone. Maybe he was never even here.

But then he still has the evidence of their time together, throbbing with renewed interest between his legs at the memory that is playing in Sherlock's head. He will have to take care of that, eventually. It won't simply go away at this state. Usually he would be annoyed now, regarding this kind of activity as tedious and thinking less of himself for having to give in to his transport. But today everything else seems to be the complete opposite from the life he thought he was living.

The hot water is washing away the sweat he knows must be spreading all over his body by now, caused by the sheer thoughts of John's hands on him. _Oh God_ , his hands. His scent. The unique proof that he wants him, too, he hopes, in a way, _oh_ , he hopes. But the scent. Masculine and somehow incredibly sweet, something too holy to lick off him, but he would try. He wouldn't even hesitate and try and lick and taste. Everywhere.

The heat is getting to his head, getting too much, too much like a prison capturing him within hot steam and fire rain. He needs to cool down. But even his attempts to turn down the warm temperature appears to not be helpful in the slightest. The lukewarm water feels like ice dropping down on him from spikes up on the highest mountains, and as much as this thought distracts him for maybe two seconds, his body already starts shivering.

When he turns it hot again, the dizziness returns, leaving his flesh wanton, his mind more and more lightheaded. He only hopes he won't suddenly faint in the shower and hurt himself. Or eventually combust. As he opens the bottle of shampoo to get some sense into his head by massaging it with slick fingers, he quickly realises that he has made a mistake. He needs the touch, the feeling of being held. But the sudden twinge of lonliness gets replaced by renewed desire when the shampoo is running down his body, down his chest, caressing and tickling his hipbones, inevitably on its way in between his legs.

The sweet tease makes him tremble and sigh vocally over the noise the stream of water is bundling him up in. He can feel his pulse quicken, his hips twitching as he feels the growing urge to touch, to give in. A wave of lust is rushing over him, melting him until he feels like he himself is becoming one with the stream, but at the same time being massaged by drops and drops of water that are just not enough to truly satisfy.

Sherlock presses his cheek against the bathroom tiles once more when he thinks he is just not capable of standing upright any longer. He starts seeing them now, whenever he closes his eyes. He sees John and him, in this very shower. Groping and kissing and rubbing, fucking and making love, too. It doesn't feel like daydreaming, it feels like remembering, however that can be, but he doesn't care.

He is now touching himself, finally allowing himself the sweet bliss, but he also can't stop wanting to prolong and swim in this sensation forever. All those impressions right in front of him make it impossible to tell apart hallucination and reality. He is rubbing the rinsing shampoo all over his body now, over his neck, his chest, and whimpers as his fingers find an already hard pair of nipples. His legs only tremble some more, and it would be very unfortunate to trip now, but he cannot stop sliding his hands over the fine hairs of his abdomen, the darker growing hairs along his thighs, and finally, _finally,_ over his yet untouched erection. It makes his pulse speed up and he can feel it jumping with anticipation underneath his touch.

His grip is strong, too eager almost, and he starts stroking with shaking fingers while the other arm is pressed against the wall to hold himself upright. With each stroke something electrifying is striking down his spine, making him lose his mind, but it is not enough. John is there again, so close in his head and has yet left him alone to resolve this problem. In his imagination John is sinking to his knees now, gently taking Sherlock's hand and putting it away from himself. He is humming, pushing his face against Sherlock's hip, and it's getting too much already.

In one quick motion, Sherlock spins around, back against the cold tiles and takes himself in hand again. For all he knows it is John's mouth on him now, swallowing him down until Sherlock can't remember how to breathe. Unable to stop himself he lets his hand fly over the hot skin of his cock that is wet from water and slick from shampoo and soap. His strokes become faster and rough, not caring for anything other than feeling the sensation of it rushing all over him. He squeezes lightly whenever his fingers reach the shaft, only just discovering how much he likes applying more pressure, and it brings him closer to the edge. He can only hear someone whimpering that doesn't sound like him at all, and his knees start trembling rather dangerously as the growing need for release makes him see sparks behind his eyelids and his moans sound more like desperate whining than noises of pleasure.

His whole body suddenly stills, though, as he hears someone whisper into his very skin, being so close that Sherlock could have sworn that it's coming right from the inside of his head. Which it does. _He_ does. John's smooth voice is talking to him, soothing him, and at the same time it lets lust grow into longing. He _misses_ him. He misses John like air, because he still thinks he can't get enough of it into his lungs, and even though his mind is clouded he still feels his absence.

He has never had him. Only ever a tiny bit, a tiny little something of a _could-be-if._ Could be _if_ he wasn't dreaming or going completely mad. But that tiny bit has been enough to make him cling to it for more, more, _more_ and never enough.

In his mind, John is stroking him slowly, frustratingly slowly, and his other hand is reaching in between Sherlock's cheeks. His whole back is pressed against the wall and the warm water almost doesn't get to him at all anymore, but he has long stopped feeling cold. John finds his perineum without any effort, as if he knew his body like it was his own (because, in reality, these are Sherlock's own fingers, but by now he is too caught up in sensation to notice anymore) and begins to carefully press his forefinger up into the hole.

Sherlock stops moving for a moment and then an overwhelming shudder flashes through his whole body, and suddenly he feels every muscle in his thighs clench, he feels the beginnings of an orgasm starting to take over him. His strokes are quick and utterly out of control, only serve to finally get him over the edge, and his knees buckle enormously. He starts to move the finger that is still inside of him around just a little, but it is enough to wash over his vision and his lids are pressed together before he opens them, only to see that the world around him is flooded and his whole body lights up to become numb. He can only distantly hear himself shout out _John_ as he comes and comes and shakes violently, open-mouthed, the sparks in front of his eyes and prickling through him from the inside out.

When he finally comes back to himself, he just sinks to his knees and inhales deeply, shaking and a ringing in his ears confuses his senses. The water washing away the mess he made. The ceramic of the tub is hard and uncomfortable. He doesn't give any damn about it.

 

 

He would like to think that pyjama pants, an old tee and a dressing gown are just about appropriate for what he is doing. He is working. He can't remember when he has last done that. But it doesn't matter now, he reminds himself, and it doesn't matter what he is wearing, either. No matter if in nightwear or in one of his tailored suit, he is still Sherlock Holmes and he will still be a detective.

_Consulting Detective. Only one in the world._

_Yes_. Yes, of course. He almost forgot. How could he almost forget something that has once been the core of his very identity, the only thing he has been living for, the one thing that mattered?

Something else matters now, and he knows. He knows why he has to solve this. Not because he is _the_ consulting detective, not to stimulate a bored brain. This isn't just about a case or the work. This is about his life, his own future. This isn't about him serving as a brain and brilliant mind that everyone can see (obviously - they are not _completely_ blind) but won't acknowledge him as a human being, won't consider that other parts of him could also have the ability to shine. For a long time he wouldn't have believed in such outrageous assertions, either. He was the brain, he has _trained_ himself to be just the brain. To live alone and swallow down those looks that people would give him. Looks that said everything by people who kept their mouths shut, because they still needed his help. That's what he was there for, after all.

But deep down he knew that he has always been so much more. He used to hate it. Hated that his body wasn't just transport, as much as he wanted to tell himself so. He still had cravings, still needed some kind of recognition. In the end, it didn't even matter what kind of recognition, or if he only stood out through a bright mind and a sharp tongue. And then, of course, there were the drugs...

Sherlock fills his lungs with a deep breath and shakes his head. He isn't that person anymore. And why is that? Because one day a doctor, far more dangerous than his title would allow him to be, sent home from an invaded war zone, soldier, healer, has come into his life and _healed_ him. Recruited him. Sherlock has always liked to believe that he had been the one to pull John with him. Made him a part of his oh-so-exciting new world, full of mischief and mayhem. But in all those years it had always been John who grounded him, lighted up what used to be dark for so long, pulled him away from the edge when he was getting too close. And one time, there are suddenly signs of a lump in his throat while he thinks of it again, John has given him a reason to stand right on the edge, look down and jump.

A good reason. Always. _All the hurt that I caused you_. But always. Always for him.

John has made him aware that he could shine bright without having to suppress everything but that trained, focussed mind of his. With John it feels like there was a fire right between his gut and the very heart that he wanted to believe didn't exist not so long ago.

He would have given this up. All of this. And he has. He knows now that John's decision to get married is none of his concern, and that a friend would help out as best as he could. His casewall had last been abused for sorting out seating arrangements and choices of food. _Wedding planning._ This is how he last remembers it.

Today, as he has come to take in the living room properly, he has found none of it. Now it is covered in bits and pieces of what has remained in his memory. It isn't a lot to work with, frankly. It seems pretty clear by now that his latest memory before waking up naked in his bed this morning is that scene of him and John, chasing some possible suspect through dark alleys of London. When he has asked himself how he was feeling at the time (seemingly pointless question, but it could still be helpful), his mind appears to be caught in a spinning brainstorm. He feels...

Frustration. Exhaustion. Butterflies. Desperation and deprivation.

_No, no, no, no. Consider all the facts, the data, concentrate!_

So John doesn't mind touching him now. He has never touched him like this before, and suddenly he walks into his room covered in nothing but a towel and kisses him awake? This can't be what it looks like.

But what does it actually look like? There are four more or less logical possibilities.

 

  1. John, for some yet undiscovered reason, doesn't remember being engaged, believes he would still live and Baker Street and that Sherlock and he were somehow romantically involved.

  2. Sherlock is currently caught in a disturbingly realistic kind of dream and will be utterly shattered as soon as he wakes up.

  3. Sherlock has begun taking drugs again which have somehow damaged the synapses in his brain and therefore manipulated his memories.

  4. Alternative realities.




 

The last one is more than a bit ridiculous, that much is obvious, but he has nothing that would provide enough evidence to eliminate this option. There just aren't enough facts to put together to even come to some kind of a satisfying conclusion. _Damn_ , why aren't there enough facts, it should be so simple!

He still cannot wrap his mind around it. It's frustrating. It's unacceptable. Manipulated. Sentiment got the better of him.

Just as Sherlock feels his chest rising and falling quicker and more uncontrolled and the frustration starting to boil inside his veins, creeping up his neck, there are suddenly steady hands on both his hips and something warm is pressing up against his back.

_John._

 


	5. Up Above the World So High

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Every time he tries to remember anything at all that could have happened during the time span between the night in the alley and his waking with John's soft lips on his own, the torn pieces in his mind slip out of his grip, and it feels like he would be trying to hold together melting ice cubes with his sheer hands, but solid coldness only melts and melts and the water runs, runs, and leaves behind wet hands, but nothing more to hold onto.

The anger that has slowly begun to build up inside of him now gets replaced by another feeling that makes his heart beat faster and a warmth raising up his neck until it reaches his face. John is _snuggling_ him from behind, they are _breathing_ together. It's almost too overwhelming for Sherlock to breathe at all, but with shuddering exhales come the smooth strokes of John's thumbs running up and down his hipbones. His nose is tickling the skin right under his jaw, and Sherlock completely freezes when he places a kiss right there. How can something feel so right when it was never meant to be received by someone like him? Affection. Comfort.

 _Love_.

No. No, it can't be. John can't be.

Sherlock swallows this thoughts down and lets them slip past the dryness of his throat. He can feel John's amused smile against the back of his neck, his content humming, and it almost breaks him. Because it isn't an illusion this time.

"New case?" he asks, apparently paying no attention to his mostly empty and weirdly constructed casewall at all, or otherwise he would have said something about it. This doesn't look like any of the cases he has ever worked on, because this isn't about a case. It's about the man standing behind him without the smallest breadth of distance, and the soldiness of him is currently the only thing that keeps Sherlock's legs from giving in. About now his brain also has the decency to remind him of the little _incident_ that has happened in the shower earlier...

And he hasn't even taken into consideration what he has felt in there. All those impressions of him and John doing all those … things. His head is spinning with confusion and clouded with the scent of Army Doctor.

"I'd tell you about my day at work, but I don't wanna bore you with the ordinary."

There is not one hint of bite in his tone, all soft and slightly amused by nothing in particular. The doctor presses one last kiss into the still moist mess of curls and gives his biceps a suggestive squeeze before he removes himself.

_Unbearable, unbearable, unbearable._

"Well, whenever this big brain of yours is too exhausted to connect the dots … You'll find me in our bed, honey."

Sherlock can turn around quickly enough to catch a glimpse of John winking at him, and he feels his knees weaken.

Honey! Honey? _Honey?_

"Since when do you call me honey?" he can only so much as breathe out, the look on his face a pure portrait of perplexity.

The grin never leaves John's face and he gives a nod towards the book laying on the living room table. He walks over to it, carefully lets his flat hand slide over the front to fully reveal the cover of the seemingly brand new book underneath a bunch of papers, letters and note sheets. " _The Beekeeper's Bible_ ," John reads out loud, as his finger underlines the words of the black and white book cover, which shows honeycombs and beehives, drawn in detail and accentuated through flowers highlighted in yellow. " _Bees, Honey, Recipes & Other Home Uses_." He smiles at Sherlock fondly. "I never knew you were that interested in bees."

"Of course, why wouldn't I be?" Sherlock spits out without second thought, and he talks too fast in the attempt to disguise all his insecurities. "Apart from the fact that they are easily the hardest working creature on this planet and that they pollute about four hundred different agricultural types of plants, which is essential for reproduction and sustaining ecosystems, they beautify the world for not only our selfish species but birds and insects as well. Our lives would differ enormously without them."

John looks surprised for a moment, frowning at him, but then a broad smile breaks this expression and only leaves something that makes Sherlock's heart grow and press against his rips. "Alright then," he whispers, his voice almost breathless. "You know where to find me." And with this, he retreats.

 

Sherlock sits in his proclaimed chair in his thinking position for hours and hours straight. John has gone to bed a long time ago. He has walked off and made his way into Sherlock's bedroom as if it was the most normal thing in the world. As if he has done it a thousand times already. It is simply frustrating not to know what is going on around him. He feels knocked out. The ground has been taken apart from underneath his feet, and now he is falling and falling, caught inside this endless loop of nonsense.

This cannot be the world he has lived in only yesterday. It just isn't possible. _And if you eliminate the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable..._ A parallel world? It sounds about as ridiculous to him than every other possibility he has not been able to rule out by now. Amnesia? Dreamlike, hyper realistic drug fantasy? John has lost his mind? Sherlock has lost his mind?

There is a higher probability regarding the latter. But Sherlock has a mindpalace. It should be a lot more difficult to have the control over his own thoughts and memories taken away from him. _And yet._ Every time he tries to remember anything at all that could have happened during the time span between the night in the alley and his waking with John's soft lips on his own, the torn pieces in his mind slip out of his grip, and it feels like he would be trying to hold together melting ice cubes with his sheer hands, but solid coldness only melts and melts and the water runs, runs, and leaves behind wet hands, but nothing more to hold onto.

Earlier, he has spent a lot of time staring at the chair opposite him. He has done this before – on long evenings whenever it started to sink in that he is living alone now. Again. After all these years, after running for his life for almost thirty months, all by himself, on his own, missing him. He never thought he could _miss_ so much. After he has come back to find John about to get engaged, living somewhere down in the suburbs, he has stared at his chair very often. When John would sit here with him, sit in the chair by the fire, he could forget about it. That he has lost him. That he is coming over for the cases, or for Mary and Sherlock to plan the wedding, and nothing else.  
  
But on those lonely, cold winter evenings, when the fire is cracking and the air smells like burned wood and the very unique odour of the flat, he feels repulsion. It is a false smell without John here. It should never smell like this when he isn't here. Sherlock wants to forbid the universe, the physics, all the air around him to lull him into this illusion of his own senses still. It would only cause the lump in his throat to grow further.  
  
Now, as he looks at John's armchair in his mind's eye, it doesn't feel as empty. Behind it he can see the kitchen and the unlit hallway to his own bedroom. The bedroom John is currently sleeping in. For whichever odd reason he would do that, in this foreign world he has been sucked into. It should scare him more. Or fascinate him more, if anything. But all his thoughts were covered, clouded by a veil of the memories of one person's smile, one person's touch, one person's kiss. He could fall asleep to this. To the dreams of John all around him. Hands tucked underneath his chin, eyes closed, mind somewhere far away and yet so close to reality, he doesn't hear the slow steps over the quietly groaning floorboards that are slowly approaching him. He doesn't hear someone walking up behind his chair.  
  
That's when his whole body suddenly startles, and he is wide awake.  
  
He feels an odd tickling on his neck, and his eyes snap open. John is leaning down behind him, resting his head on Sherlock's shoulder, and he can feel him smiling and calmly breathing through his nose.  
  
"You coming to bed?" he asks gently.  
  
"Hmmh, thinking," Sherlock mumbles as a first response, still a bit put off by his sleep-craving body and mind.  
  
He actually shivers when John's lips caress the skin below his jaw oh-so-lightly, whispering into his very lungs, filling and emptying them with oxygen and making him take shallower breaths. "Yeah? Because it looks like you're even more tired than I am."  
  
His chuckling vibrates against his neck and Sherlock lets out the softest gasp.  
  
"Also," John continues in a rough voice, "if I didn't know better, I'd ask if you are avoiding me."  
  
He kisses the skin behind his ear. Sherlock gulps. Loudly. The light sensation is torture and he feels its affect running down his spine and settling almost inside of his bone structure, controlling him. And his mouth.  
  
"I- Er, I just..." he starts, but his voice lacks the air to say more.  
  
John places another kiss just where jaw meets throat, open-mouthed and with the smallest hint of tongue, and Sherlock has to grip the arms of his chair to steady himself.  
  
"I thought about you, you know? When I was lying in bed. Could barely fall asleep."  
  
John's voice rasps out the words and it sounds like they were crawling on sandpaper, and from there on they travel right down below Sherlock's gut. He presses another wet kiss to his neck and the arousal must be sensible between them like a fireball floating through the room.  
  
"God, your _smell_. Your smell was making me mad," John mumbles, continuing to kiss him. By the time he is lightly sucking the skin into his mouth, releasing it, sucking it in again, Sherlock is whimpering helplessly and his knuckles are painted white from the strength of his grip on the chair.  
  
"I thought about how you looked in bed this morning. All drowsy and naked, like a bloody fallen angel." John's hands wander down Sherlock's shoulders and biceps, and Sherlock shivers, shivers so hard, his hips moving on their own, controlled by all the arousal and energy that is currently heading south, heating up the blood in his veins. And John hasn't even properly touched him yet. But this is exactly what makes him ache, makes him beg nonverbally.  
  
He smooths his hands up again, tracing the line of his collarbones and then, almost shamelessly, lets them dip below Sherlock's shirt, up again, before he opens the first and then the second button. Sherlock nearly bites his tongue in the attempt of staying silent. Because he's afraid. Afraid that, should he dare to let oh-the-slightest sound pass his lips, John will laugh at him and leave, forever mocking him for his desperate needs.  
  
Body is betraying him, he realises whenever he shifts in his chair, and the material of his fine trousers has more and more trouble hiding the bulge that is undoubtedly straining against them.  
  
John's hands know no mercy, travel all the way below his thin shirt, rubbing against his hardening nipples and leaving Sherlock to his helpless, tiny moans. His heart skips several beats of fear when all he can feel all of a sudden are not John's hands anymore but John's absence, and he feels alone, cold and the regretful ache of wanting.

He wants to tear out every single hair on his head out of frustration and the thought of _I knew he would leave, stupid, stupid_ , when suddenly John appears right in front of him again. He grins down at him in mockery pride, and this face is still able to surprise Sherlock, almost as much as does the strong, deeply-settled look of affection in his eyes. "Look at you," he mumbles, just as Sherlock's Adam's apple bobs and his voice is yet again sandpaper. "Just say you want me to take you to bed now, Sherlock, and maybe I can still hold myself back for more than two seconds."  
  
But Sherlock stays silent, can't seem to find his own voice in the messy storm consisting of brain functions, thoughts and primal desires that roars against the walls of his skull, sets every nerve ending on fire. John looks down at him with his brows cocked, seemingly really waiting for him to give some kind of permission.  
  
_Oh God, yes_ , he wants to scream at him, scream it from all the rooftops of England, including the top of St. Paul's Cathedral, he himself sitting on the very tip. He must've given the tiniest of nods, and before he knew what was happening he has his lap full of John Watson, who is now tugging him by the collar of his halfway opened shirt and bringing their lips together almost violently.  
  
Only now Sherlock can feel it, too. John's own desire. He fills him up with it so completely like his tongue is filling his mouth and it makes him feel whole again. Makes him feel what he has been missing since this morning, something he didn't think he could ever have not even twenty four hours ago. When Sherlock opens his mouth wider, he dares to push back against John's tongue, the feel of it making him shiver. There is nothing to think about anymore, and his mouth feels like fireworks would explode in it. A moan is crawling up his throat, a vibration spreading out from all over his chest up to his lips, and he wraps his arms around John's neck to pull him even closer.  
  
A great wave of heat is washing over him, his skin tingling from the surprising but not entirely uncomfortable sensation. Whenever John is moving against him, another wave rushes over his whole body. The air between them keeps getting hotter and almost uncomfortably tropic. That is, if Sherlock could give the slightest damn about something as irrelevant as atmospheric humidity right now. All he cares about is John, John's hands, John's mouth, their hips moving together, and when they suddenly find the perfect angle he lets out an embarrassingly loud groan. John's pyjama trousers are thin and he isn't even sure if he is wearing anything underneath, but all he knows is that everything between them is still too much.

John kisses his neck again now, hungrily, and he loses it. His long fingers run through the short grey strands over and over (they look golden in the firelight, he notes absently), and the lower John sinks down on him to kiss and lick the skin where shoulder meets neck, above his collarbones, above his solar plexus now, the less friction Sherlock can get out of his movements, the less effectively he can press his throbbing erection against John's body.

His head only swims, absolutely lightheaded, as John opens one button after the other while he makes his way below his navel. He does it all so gently and painfully slowly that Sherlock has been reduced to a constant shivering of arousal and whimpers that should be out of his usual vocal range. John has sunken to the floor now, and takes up all the space between his legs. When he dips his tongue inside of his belly button, Sherlock wraps his legs instantly around John's upper body to pull him closer, closer still, get him where he so desperately wants him. But John has decided to tease only further. Pressing his cheek against the outline of the bulge in his trousers, he seeks another long moan from the depths of Sherlock's throat out into the open, quiet space of 221B.

"So," he says in a voice full of flirtation and seduction, "my clever detective."

Sherlock has gone back to grab the arms of his chair again, only to prevent himself from pushing up his hips and rubbing the fabric prison, of which his pulsing cock wants so hard to be freed from, shamelessly against John's face. He really has lost all of his control that has taken him years to build up for himself. For now, he doesn't care, but how long can this state of mind satisfy him?

Whatever he has been about to say next, do next, think next, the world stops for a moment as soon as he can't feel the warmth of John's cheek against his body anymore. He dares to look down, and then everything around him melts.

 _This is it._ The realisation hits him like a lorry at maximum speed, almost knocks him out completely. Everything vanishes expect for the dark, deep blue eyes of the man that is looking up at him now. He loses himself, he feels himself falling down and getting sucked up by them like they were black holes of inescapable depth. Time and space don't matter anymore, falling doesn't matter anymore. Because _This. Is. It._

Those eyes are all he will ever need. Forget food, water, body functions. Forget the air around him, forget breathing. Those eyes are all he will ever want to see.

_Does John feel it, too?_

Gone is the playful, flirtatious tone in his words, leaving nothing behind but an unexpected, stomach-dropping heaviness of rare emotion.

And his voice is only a whisper as he asks, "Bedroom?"

Just as Sherlock's breaks and he can't bring himself to care about his loss of control at all as he answers, "Please, John. Please."

 


	6. Like A Diamond in the Sky

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Scratching John's hair: John rubs nose against near skin, content sighing, sounds a bit like purring – rather adorable. Running hands up and down John's back: hard muscles, strong shoulders, hints of scar tissue – difficult to pay attention to John's reaction in wild mix of impressions – growing desire to place kisses all over his back. Sliding hands down further John's back and grabbing his arse: John makes surprised noise, sounds like an enthusiastic grunt – fuels desire to grab harder – it presses hot, hard erections against each other and –_
> 
>  
> 
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> His brain shuts down as they both moan loudly – it's so much already.

It's raining. Sherlock can feel it in each and every cell of his body. A rain of fire is pouring down on him, soaking his skin and settling somewhere around his bones. Bones? Who needs them anyway? What has he ever needed bones for? He feels boneless. John is on top of him, kissing his neck with so much focus, so carefully as if Sherlock's body was made of glass and not breaking him was the most important task of his life.  
  
He would be offended, usually. He's not a child anymore, after all. No one should feel the need to take care of him, fondle him. But somewhere in the back of his mind (the part that can still think clearly, but is giving a very tiny, quiet voice today and is told by every other part to just finally take a break and drown in the sensations) he knows how much he needs it. John's touch that burns every inch of skin that it comes into contact with. So many, so many inches...  
  
It all seems to have started so innocently.  
  
John had taken his hand to lead him through the living room and the hallway of Sherlock's bedroom. As soon as he closed the door behind them with his foot, Sherlock was spun around and pressed against the wood, could feel the doorhandle pressing into his side and not caring in the slightest. He moaned into John's mouth as he kissed him with parted lips and a tongue as addictive as honey, making his world slow down like the golden liquid dripping from a spoon.  
  
It's so hard to take all this. John's wet lips where neck meets shoulder, his hands running down from his chest to both his lips, up and down, up and down again, and now his thumbs were brushing over both his nipples and,  
  
_"Ah!"_ A gasp. So much and not enough. "John... Oh god, John, _please_."  
  
He didn't know what he was begging for, and didn't care about how desperate he could sound when he begged, but for some wondrous reason John seemed to know exactly what he needed. He chuckled into the crook of his neck and _god, the vibrations_.  
  
"You say 'please' an awful lot today. So polite. Makes me kinda want to hear it again."  
  
John's smile was as sweet as it was cruel, but he could tell that he needed it, too. Damn, since when has he, really? Since when has he needed him almost as much as he needed John? Was this just another lucky twist of this unbelievable parallel world, just like the non-existent engagement and presence of Mary Morstan in their lives? Has he actually never wanted him at all, but here where the _what-ifs_ rule his world he suddenly did?  
  
Enough! If this should really be the case, he didn't want to ruin the only chance he will ever get to have with this man.

He didn't really understand what was happening around him as soon as John's fingers touched his neck and disappeared in the dark curls. Sherlock shivered (so sensitive) and his legs threatened to give in for a second, so he slid deeper down the door, more of John's height now. He was pulling his hair a little, and the sweet pain immediately dissolved into arousal that went straight to his cock.  
  
John's hands were wandering again. Slowly, they were running down his neck. "Tell me, Sherlock," he murmured in the sweetest of tones.  
  
"Yes," Sherlock said without a second thought. _God, did that come out desperate?_ But oh, he was desperate. And how he was. For whatever may come.  
  
John's face changed to adjust to the softness of his smile, the skin crinkled around his blue eyes. (Sherlock loves those wrinkles. It feels like he always has. Just noticed it too late.) He could read the story of someone else's whole life within a few seconds, and yet he couldn't even read himself, or what is going on in his heart. Has been going on for so long, probably. But now he could see. Could see it so clearly and literally in front of him that, for only a moment, he was feeling like this epiphany had given him the ability to fly. The moment was over too soon for him to try it out, but if anything it had made him bolder.  
  
Sherlock kissed John's brow that is surrounded by a deep wrinkle, and he felt the wrinkle smoothing out under his lips.  
  
"Did you just kiss my eyebrow?" John sounded surprised.  
  
The ridiculous bliss Sherlock felt from having done this prevented him from feeling too embarrassed about it. Still, he could feel his face getting warmer. "I did."  
  
The surprise still dominated John's features slowly, very slowly transformed into an unbelieving smile not much different from the one before. The eyebrow wrinkle had returned.  
  
"You are..."  
  
_Ridiculous? An idiot? A giant turn-off?_  
  
"Incredible."  
  
Before Sherlock could comprehend what was happening John was on him again, pressing him into the hard wood, chest to chest, groin to groin, and John's tongue was sliding against his own. He wanted to break the kiss to gasp, to moan, and at the same time he wanted John to swallow him whole, all of his moans and all of the air in his lungs. John's strong hands grabbed his arse hard enough to bruise, and Sherlock threw his head back in surprised arousal, which made a rather loud _thong_ as the back of his head banged against the door. In the few seconds of dizziness from the impact he didn't realise that he was being pulled up and _lifted up_. His cock, now hard and throbbing and straining against the fabric of thin trousers, was rubbing against John's hot erection again and again as John tried to keep Sherlock from sliding down and falling. It was too slow, not enough friction, not enough everything, but it still felt like he could be ready to burst every moment.

He was holding on tightly, wrapping his arms around John's neck and his lanky pair of legs around his waist as his body threatens to sink deeper still. But just then John grabbed him even harder, and his fingers digging into his arse, parting cheeks as he tried to hold him and turn them around. Sherlock could feel his cock pulsing impossibly hard as his hole was stretching, and pain and pleasure turned into a boiling cocktail that made goosebumps run over every inch of skin.

John spun him around and almost threw him onto the silky covers of Sherlock's double bed.

And this is where they are now. Sherlock's skin still burning, hotter than ever before. On the bed, sideways and still fully clothed. (There's no way they can still be fully clothed!) Sherlock's hands tug at the fabric of John's shirt, but obviously it doesn't work that way. He can't think properly and logic isn't really a concern of his right now. John stops kissing him, but before he can complain about him stopping, his mouth is running along his jawline, kissing its way down, and Sherlock throws his head back. His fingers still for a moment, the maximum focus on the sensations of wet hot tongue on his neck, biting the skin now, the sparks of pain setting his whole body on fire. John bites down again, playful but harder this time, and Sherlock hears an embarrassingly loud groan that definitely came out of his own mouth (that is shamefully unoccupied) and every little bite, every time John sucks a bit of skin in between his lips (he'll mark him) he feels his rock-hard cock jump and throb.

His legs are already trembling from either the lack of touches and friction where he wants it the most, or from the overload of sensations he is currently exposed to. He feels like a stranded creature suffering from amnesia, so that it doesn't know if it will die from the water in its lungs and the inability to breathe enough air or if it has to crawl back into the ocean and to breathe underwater. He doesn't know what to do with his hands anymore, constantly switching between pulling on John's shirt and running up and down the bare skin of his back and raking his fingers through short hair. John seems to enjoy both equally, and Sherlock can't stop to trace and file away the different reactions. He tries to concentrate on this now, to distract himself from the aching and yet untouched erection between his legs.

_Scratching John's hair: John rubs nose against near skin, content sighing, sounds a bit like purring – rather adorable. Running hands up and down John's back: hard muscles, strong shoulders, hints of scar tissue – difficult to pay attention to John's reaction in wild mix of impressions – growing desire to place kisses all over his back. Sliding hands down further John's back and grabbing his arse: John makes surprised noise, sounds like an enthusiastic grunt – fuels desire to grab harder – it presses hot, hard erections against each other and –_

His brain shuts down as they both moan loudly – it's so much already.

"Sherlock," he gasps out in a rough voice. It travels down Sherlock's spine to the base of it, makes the muscles in his thighs jerk and his legs fall open further.  
  
Yes, it's too much, he decides, and led by a sudden impulse he surprises John by pushing himself up, and where John has just straddled his hips, he is now sitting on Sherlock's lap. They utter the most indecent noises as Sherlock's hot cock, swollen and sensitive from arousal, pushes against the underside of John's testicles and perineum, but Sherlock swallows the sound of it down with a wet kiss. They push and pull, on hair, on clothing, take their faces in hands with so much eagerness that their teeth collide sometimes. None of them minds.  
  
As they start moving together, again push and pull, up and down, rutting back and forth, it can't even be called kissing anymore. They both have their eyes closed in pleasure, mouths hanging open and are just moaning against each other. Occasionally (but eventually always) coming back to each other, tongues twirling, and orgasmic noises are joined by the sounds of wet suction.  
  
As John pulls his lower lip between his teeth and _sucks_ Sherlock's hips stutter on their own and his cock slips up John's crack. He makes a whimpering noise in the back of his throat as John's hips move in little circles and he is slowly riding Sherlock through three layers of clothes.  
  
" _Johnnnn_ ," he knows he sounds so desperate as he is feeling the first drips of pre-cum smearing against the silk of his pants. God, he needs to get them off. He's so hot, how hasn't that bothered him until now? John's hips move forward again and- _oh God, yes!_  - yes, he remembers why.  
  
He wants to see John naked, he wants it so badly. How often has he imagined what he would look like? His broad shoulders, his biceps, the fine hairs on his chest. Does he have pink nipples? His little tummy that fits him perfectly. _The scar._  
  
"John." His voice is only a pitch higher than he would have expected as he whines and lets himself fall back on the bed. John seems to know immediately what he needs, almost as if he had had a hundred times of practising this, studying him. _A Study in Sherlock by John Watson_. Sherlock's head can't make sense of much anymore, so it comes as a surprise when there is a pair of lips trailing the burning skin down his chest, down his stomach. He arches his back off the bed, silently whimpering, and even more silently hiding a plea behind it.  
  
_Don't stop. Never stop again._  
  
Someone must've opened the buttons of his dress shirt. (His swimming mind makes it hard to remember when.) Sherlock suddenly makes the mistake of looking down on himself. His eyes, like the right opposites of a magnet, are captured by John's heavy, darkened blue eyes on him. What he sees in his expression is not only amazement. Amazement is what he has seen already and so many times back then, back when it had all begun on their first case together, the _amazing, brilliant, fantastic, do you know you do that out loud, no it's... fine_. And it was fine, it was always so much more than fine, _unattached like me, fine, good,_ but oh God, oh God, now he is seeing, now he is finally able to connect the dots, because it is the exact same expression.  
  
There are more wrinkles now, the bags under his eyes are deeper, the grey strands have long dominated the blond ones. His face looks more worn, his jaw stronger and his eyes harder from all the battles fought, from all the hate and sorrow he swallowed. Sherlock loves his face probably more than ever now, as much as it makes him sad, and as much as it completely flashes him right now.  
  
_It's the same expression_. And it is so much more than amazement that John expresses. It is something rooted so deeply in his heart, in his soul, it seems. Like something would've clicked. Like he stepped right into a whirling storm and could never be the same, and not even wanting to if he could, not minding, no regrets, and full of... _love_?  
  
Which means that it has always been this expression. That maybe, just maybe...  
  
"Sherlock?" John does sound worried now, his brows drawn together, but the love on his face isn't gone. Something in him tells him that he can't unsee it now. From now on and until forever.  
  
There is a loud sob that fills the room, and now Sherlock finally understands why John is looking at him like this, why he is leaning forward and stretches out his arm to caress his cheek. The thumb with which he strokes over one sharp cheekbone is wet. After another sob he realises that it is not John's thumb but  _his_  own skin that is wet, and a hot burn sets him blinking, more tears running down his cheeks now.  
  
"Sherlock, sorry. I'm sorry, did I do something wrong?" He hears John's soft, apologetic voice over the droning noises chasing each other in his head.  
  
It's so much. It's _so_ much.  
  
Sherlock tries to keep him from apologising. "No. No." But yes. This. This here is wrong. Why now? Why him? Why does John pretend he would know what is going on? Why does he take his fragile little heart in his hands if he doesn't plan to keep on holding it upright? He cannot take another fall.  
  
John cannot have chosen him. Not after everything Sherlock did to him. Not ever.  
  
"John, why-" he finds himself trying to gasp out, but it is dull and broken off by another sob and the fact that his face is pressed into John's shoulder.  
  
"Shhh," he soothes him, rubbing slow circles over his back.  
  
He doesn't want soothing. But he does. Oh, how he does. And needs.  
  
"Why are we- What are we doing?"  
  
The Fall. The Wedding. _Mary_. How could he _want_ him after all that? How could he want _him_?  
  
John's smile after this is honest and a little sad. He clearly tries to overplay the obvious anxiety that makes his Adam's apple bob as he swallows with amusement. "Well... I was hoping," he is gesturing between the two of them, "...you know?"

There is a hint of pink on his cheeks now, and for a moment Sherlock eye's water again, but from the incredible love and affection he feels for this man in front of him. He forgets everything else, almost as if it was easy to do so, and for once only lives in the present moment.

"You're a doctor, John. You should be capable of saying-“ but then he realises that as he tries to come up with a word for it, to say it out loud and have it hang here in the space between them, his mouth stands still. The mocking but loving smile is wiped off his face again, and his open lips form the gap he is feeling between his heart and mind.

John tilts his head in mutual amusement. "Yes?"

If he had wanted to tease Sherlock because of his big mouth and no trousers (although in this case not quite true yet), it wouldn't have worked out well. Although he is rather looking at him as if to say ' _Look at us. We're middle-aged adults and we're both ridiculous._ ' They both share this feeling of insecurity and vulnerability that makes it so hard to phrase what they really mean. What _this_ really means.

"It's more than sexual intercourse, isn't it?" Sherlock asks innocently, carefully, as he is trying to distance himself from the overwhelming sentiment with dry terms.

John blushes impossibly deeper (which highlights his pretty blue eyes) and then has to turn away for a second to suppress a laugh. "Please don't ever use that word in this context ever again." Then, softer, "Yes. Yes it is. It's always been."

 _It's always been?_ Always more than sheer amazement. And between the two of them it will always be so much more than sex.

"More than just fucking," Sherlock says quietly but with a clarity that clearly surprises John. Maybe he let his voice go at least one octave deeper on purpose. And maybe he just got the idea of how flirting works. Flirting with John Watson. _Incredible._

"Sherlock Holmes," John breathes, his voice not more than a thick whisper. "You never swear."

They have broken the rules of gravity without meaning to, something always pulling them towards each other. The light that had been reduced to a small warm flame is now growing again and burning bright. Sherlock can feel his eyelids grow heavier, the closer he is to John, the stronger the smell gets that numbs every rational thought and reminds him of naked masculinity, safety and _home_.

"I also never _fuck_."

He can actually hear John gasp as he uses the word again, and he wishes he could've seen his face, but they have both closed their eyes and now their lips are meeting in a kiss, parting and meeting again and parting...

It calms Sherlock down the longer they are kissing and slowly closing the distance between their bodies more and more. They are mirroring each other, looking like jigsaw pieces that can only paint the full picture together, John's parts fitting Sherlock's perfectly. They are sitting opposite each other with their knees bent and their legs entangled, feet touching the other one's thighs and bum. It eases the anxiety and soothes the sorrow around his heart as John's hands find the back of his head to run his fingers through soft curls. They kiss until Sherlock's tears dry, and as if John could sense it, he moves on to press kisses to his salty cheeks where the skin feels hardened from dried teardrops.

With the heels of his feet he presses into the small of his back and slots their bodies together from chest to groin. Sherlock lets his head fall backwards at the sensation of John's heavy erection against his own strained trousers (that are, by now, just a sticky feeling burden). He expects John to lick along his exposed throat, but is instead surprised as John only sweetly rubs his nose against the underside of his jaw and breathes in.

"You are amazing," he mumbles.

The effect this has on Sherlock is probably not what John has been hoping for. He stiffens as he feels the panic return that makes his lips tremble with the thoughts and the knowledge that _no, I'm not, I never was, never good enough for you,_ but John kisses his temple before he can turn away. He feels his eyes burn again.  
  
He feels soft, wet lips against his ear and presses his eyes together.

"Let me show you how much you mean to me," John whispers gently, tickles his skin. "I want to show you that I love you more than anything in this world."

An unbelieving laugh bubbles up and out of Sherlock's mouth, letting out breaths caught in his lungs on their way, and his voice breaks.  
  
"John, I believe you to be capable of much, but how would you possibly do that?"

John's answer is a sweet, slightly predatory grin. "I'm a soldier. I'm sure I can think of something."

For a few seconds Sherlock is reduced to perplexed blinking. _This... shouldn't be so hot (and calming)_.

"You're not a soldier, you are a doctor."

Now it is John's turn to let his voice go much deeper as he doesn't cease to point out, "I'm an army doctor," and then takes advantage of Sherlock's gaping mouth.

It helps. He shuts up, his brain shuts down and the fires are lit again.

 

_"Oh God, John."_

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Eyyy, long time no see!  
> Yes, I know, I know. No cheap excuses. (But I have been very stressed and not in the best of moods.)  
> I know this might not have been what you expected to happen in this chapter, but I promise that in the next one Sherlock will finally be filled... with... eternal happiness.... (and John).
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	7. Show Your Little Light

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It's his body he cannot believe. His actual, naked body that is above him, so close, and he not only feels but sees him breathing. The chest rising and falling. While, in the darkness of the room and the pale moonlight shining through halfly closed curtains, his skin appears in mostly blue shades, his chest and face melt more into fading purple colours – flushed. Hints of John's arousal. _He wants?_ Gaze following the path over strained nipples – _arousal_ – up to the flexing muscles of his upper arms, and there, on the left shoulder – crushed skin, marked by the wound that has brought him into his life. It raked around his skin as far as it would come, creating the form of something reminding him of a star. Sherlock could only describe it as beautiful.

John's hands are warm and a little rough. The thought alone, the thought of having them run up and down the back of his arse, the touch so light that it's almost like breath, sweetly blowing through thin short hairs on his thighs, thumbs just teasing the skin near his hole, alerting nerves, and the thought alone makes him shiver. But it turns out that actually feeling all of the thoughts his mind has spun for him coming to life makes him wince with pleasure. John is behind him, and even though Sherlock's face is hanging above his pillow, hands and legs supporting his weight to keep him in a position that he has only ever taken up in one of his wank fantasies before, he smells John. Sherlock is completely naked and dangerously exposed. He feels glorious.

He hears himself letting out an embarrassing little sound from the back of his throat when John places a kiss on his backbone. Another kiss, lower. His thumbs are now actively sliding in and out between his cheeks, pulling them apart again and again. Sherlock gasps when he feels the tip of a tongue licking along the crack of his arse, licking and licking, closer to his entrance. When John's wet tongue reaches the spot where all his nerves come together, pleasure rushes through him like lightning. He throws his head back and lets out a moan the thin walls couldn't sustain. In the end, he surrenders and lets his head fall onto the mattress, pressing his cheek into his pillow because suddenly his limbs are weak, so weak.  
  
He still manages to lift his arse up enough, and John chuckles as he gets the hint. The vibrations of his low chuckle make him whimper, the sound itself being the most arousing thing he has ever heard. _Yet_. Sherlock decides to simply keep his mouth hanging open. It's nothing he willingly decides on, of course, but as the next thing John does is putting his tongue _in_ , all he can do now is groan and incoherently mumble nonsense into his pillow. John grabs him by his hipbones and it throws him completely off balance, out of control, tongue pushing in further. _Harder_. Sherlock gasps for air like a man drowning. Every time John pulls out, he is hit with yet more arousal. Trying to push back, trying to make him do it faster. _Yes, deeper!_ More blood heading south.

Suddenly there is a hand closing around his cock, and he almost breaks in two as he arches his back to push into it, get more of the sweet friction around his throbbing erection. John licks one long stripe up his crack and gives his cock a quick stroke. Sherlock almost comes on the spot. His fingers start to cramp from holding onto the bedsheets for dear life. Then the sensation vanishes. Sherlock tries to reach for his own cock out of utter desperation now, but John is faster and holds him back by taking both his hands to interlace them with his own and press Sherlock's palms to the mattress. His heartbeat - he hasn't realised it's going like crazy, _thump thump thump_ , and that he's gotten all _tense, stiff, nervous_ , so he is still desperate but grateful, and his whole body calms from this little gesture that shows him _John is here, he takes care, trust him_. He feels him leaning over his body in that moment, dropping little kisses on the back of his neck. Sherlock's eyes start watering.

_Don't cry now. Keep it together, Holmes._

"You know..."

When John speaks, his voice is low, his voice is rough how Sherlock likes it and treasures it deep down in his mindpalace, his voice is soft, almost as if. As if there was a possibility that he does. Maybe he does. But it can't be. Yet he keeps going. He said, _you know_...

"…gorgeous?"

And Sherlock sobs.

" _I love you_."

There it is. He cannot hold back the tears anymore that are welling up, and symmetrically they run down his cheeks and leave a wet trail that sinks into the fabric of the pillow that works like quicksand. He does? He loves? Him? He loves him? Does he now? When the hell should that have happened?

John might not see his tears yet. Good. He shouldn't worry. He could use his time much better by saying it again. Sherlock must hear it again. He must.

"Put your hands under your head and pillow, will you?" John asks sweetly, kissing the back of his neck again.

Sherlock does as he wishes (he'd do anything) and can feel him bending over (the warmth is gone for a moment, it's horrible), but he leans back down on him, his chest and belly and thighs against Sherlock's back and hips and arse, and damn, he wants. He isn't sure what he wants precisely, but he wants. There's the sound of a cap being opened, a bit of creaking and _plop_ , and John's mouth is on him again, just below his nape curl. He places an open-mouthed kiss just there. Sherlock shivers.

"Shhh, that's right. I wanna make you feel so good." He moves on, wet lips behind his ear. Sherlock can feel his fingers twitching underneath his head. The ache to touch himself, the _longing_ to reach out for John's body. Oh, he needs to see him. There's so much he needs.

"This is gonna be a little cold."

And even though he says it, Sherlock still gives a jerk when a cold and wet sensation reaches his entrance. He gives another, but for entirely different reasons. _Shit_ , John knows how to tease him. Almost as good as he knows him, apparently, always managing to find the balance between building up pleasure and torturing him with his own endless supply of wanting. Yet, none of it is satisfying. The more John does to him – _oh, more_ , he pulls his cheeks further apart with both his hands, digging fingers into the flesh and it almost hurts, _god_ , his thumb circles the sensitive ring of nerve bundles and _fuck, fuck!_ , his finger slides in, lubed up and slowly pushing, but it still creates a burning sensation he cannot resist to crave – the more it is never enough.

Somewhere in between he actually remembers to be unnecessarily embarrassed because John has found lube in his bedroom. Almost as if he had forgotten he is now living in a sort of parallel universe in which John Hamish Watson has one finger up his arse and still keeps going. But maybe one does tend to get a little confused under certain circumstances, even with the clever head (with fairly little blood supply and thinking capacity at the moment) of one Sherlock Holmes.

There's a second finger now, and Sherlock actually cries out when John uses it to open him up further. Up to now he hasn't even properly realised that silent moans and incoherently whimpered words are all the sounds he has been making for the past five minutes (five hours, five years, estimating the amount of time passed doesn't seem to really matter) and he clenches the sheet beneath his hands out of frustration.

If only he could touch himself. If only he could press his cock against the mattress and move, create some friction, anything that won't make him come untouched. But then he would have to give up moving towards John's fingers every time he pulls back a little, destroying the rhythm he might be trying to build because he is just too eager.

Third finger. Oh. _God._

_"Jooooohn!"_

He can clearly hear him pant behind him, not unaffected by what he is doing to him, which is calming, if not also confusing. _If he wants it too, why doesn't he put it in already? Oh, please._

"Oh, Sherlock. You're just … Fuck."

At a moment's notice he pulls his fingers out too hastily, causing Sherlock to let out a sharp hiss as the burning returns.

"Sorry, sorry." John draws back a bit, and in the next second he can feel one of his hands on each cheek again, stroking them with his thumbs in little circles. "Are you alright?"

He kisses his inner thighs again, little kisses, little pecks that happen so quickly that they feel ghostly. John's lips travel up and down, and each time he reaches the place where the back of his thigh conflates into that plumb arse cheek of his, he travels a little bit higher. Closer to the spot behind his balls. Where he wants him. Only one of the places where he wants him.

So his answer, thanks to John, only turns out to be a string of desperate moans in different pitches.

"I was just too eager to have you."

_Oh, you're the one who's eager? If you're so eager why don't you f- make love to me already?_

"You're just so hot. Your voice, the sounds you make when I reduce to desperation, your body trembling beneath me, _oh Sherlock_ , you make me crazy. How can I have something so beautiful? You're _so_ beautiful."

Sherlock feels the tears and the dark thoughts return at John's words. No, not now.

"Stop talking and do it already," he gets out, half choked with emotion and breathlessness.

There was a moment of silence, and Sherlock actually fears he has completely ruined it now. Not only the mood, but John's apparent, or at least imagined, feelings for him. He has always been too rude, too insensitive, too himself to be anyone's first or second or twenty-ninth choice of a potential partner, so why should the bravest and kindest and wisest human being in the world want to be in any sort of relationship with him in the first place?

So that's why he is shocked, _shocked_ , when he hears John (brave, kind, wise) chuckle above him once more.

"Oh, we're impatient, aren't we? I think you will have to be a little more specific."

John puts his tongue where his fingers have just been, and all fears are forgotten for the moment as quivering lust returns and cannot be let out of his body by the deep groan that escapes Sherlock's throat. He should know. He has tried often enough. The lust won't leave him. (Maybe John won't leave him either.)

"There, yes! Put it in. I need you inside me. _Please_."

His tongue leaves his hole with a wet sound. "Begging again?" John teases, putting the tip of his finger in. Teasing him more. "I am inside you."

Sherlock makes a frustrated noise. "Ngh, for God's sake, I need- John, your cock. Please, I need to feel it. I need to know how huge and heavy it feels, I need your balls against my arse as I scream out your name, and please, I need to hear what you sound like when you come undone."

John swallows loudly behind him, makes a wanton noise in the back of his throat. "Holy _Christ_ , Sherlock."

The sound of the bottle of lube being uncapped reappears, and also the sound of someone (probably) pouring a very enthusiastic amount of it on his hands, then making breathy little noises as he strokes himself to get his own cock lubricated.

 _Not fair_ , Sherlock thinks, but only for a second, as shortly after he feels the head of John's erection (wet and hot and _real –_ how is this real?) pressing against his body's entrance. He's shivering all over, but he barely notices. His observation skills have narrowed down to one man and one man alone. The temptation to just reach for him and pull him towards and inside of him is almost irresistible but, technically, he has never done this before. Even though he remembers, distantly, somewhere in the back of his mind, that they should've done this a thousand times by now, technically, he knows he has no experience. But he isn't nervous anymore. John is here. John will guide him.

"Oh!" is what John has to say when the tip of his head disappears inside of him. He can feel it throbbing to the rhythm of his heartbeat. He thinks. He hopes. He hopes it can feel like they're not two people at all but one, someday. He knows he doesn't make sense and decides to not give the slightest fuck about it. (Perhaps not the best way of saying he doesn't care, given his current situation.)

He pushes in farther. Sherlock feels the burning sensation returning with every extra inch John pushes into him, he feels himself opening around him, and the more John glides inside, the more he stretches because the size of him only seems to increase. And he hasn't even taken half of it yet.

 _Oh my God, he is_ huge. The affirmation of his wet dreams and deductions (no one walks like that if they don't also have... you know) makes his cock jump with excitement and uncontrollable arousal. It intensifies, even, as he thinks about why he is allowed to know this now. _Because John's huge member is_ … And then it starts to actually _sink in_. Into his mind, mind you.

John, behind him, around him, inside, everything he has ever wanted. But it's still not enough. The satisfaction doesn't happen, and it won't. Not like this. He stops and stiffens as he thinks and worries. His face is still pressed into the pillow. John is behind him, but he's not _seeing_ him. And Sherlock hasn't seen him. It hurts, physically, and right now more than ever. It breaks down on him, like the piano on a cartoon character, that he could be anywhere right now and wouldn't know, that this could be anybody there, he wouldn't know. The greatest fool, believing everything his mind tells him to. It has happened often enough. The possibility is still not eliminated, after all. _Drug induced fantasy?_

No, no, he stiffens, he thinks too much.

"Wait!"

John stops immediately, but he handles it, and he's soft. "Alright. Alright. What do you need?"

"I need-" Sherlock swallows. His words are still muffled by the pillow, but he is convinced John will hear every word. He trusts him. He will know. He isn't even sure he speaks in sentences anymore. "See you?"

He can hear the gentle smile in John's response. "Of course. I want that, too."

He pulls out again, so cautiously this time, and turns him around. His limbs are noticeably grateful about the change of position, as well as his back. And then it happens. He dares to open his eyes. The room is dark, but not dark enough to for their vision to fail. Not dark enough to not see each other. So when Sherlock sees John, it takes his breath away. No, he actually things he might die from it.

It's his body he cannot believe. His actual, naked body that is above him, so close, and he not only feels but sees him breathing. The chest rising and falling. While, in the darkness of the room and the pale moonlight shining through half closed curtains, his skin appears in mostly blue shades, his chest and face melt more into fading purple colours – flushed. Hints of John's arousal. _He wants?_ Gaze following the path over strained nipples – _arousal_ – up to the flexing muscles of his upper arms, and there, on the left shoulder – crushed skin, marked by the wound that has brought him into his life. It raked around his skin as far as it would come, creating the form of something reminding him of a star. Sherlock could only describe it as beautiful.

But his face. His smile of astonishment, of disbelief. His eyes that are darker tonight, darker from black pupils blown over the circles of navy blue. John looks at him as if it they knew each other since forever and would only now see each other for the first time, and as if what he fell in love with would reflect on what he sees just there. It happened all before. The long stares, the ever so overwhelming wonder. Why is he still surprised?

"Hi," John whispers.

"Hi." Sherlock wonders where this breathy voice comes from.

"How are you?"

He pulls John down by putting his hands on both his cheeks, caressing them, before he wraps them around his neck.

"Surprisingly okay."

Their lips meet and open for tongues starving to dance with each other. The passion of their kiss heats up quickly and grows into lust as one kiss melts into another and another, their joint moans filling the room filthily. They have started moving, and when John's cock slides against Sherlock's and they are chest to chest, Sherlock has to break the string of kisses to pull him closer.

He hasn't realised his eyelids are pressed together before he opens them again, called back to Earth by John's soft words.

"Wanna try again?"

He nods quickly.

Shortly after he feels John shift above him, sliding his hands down his thighs to open his legs wider. Before Sherlock knows what's happening, he feels the head of his cock inside of him again. The feeling remains the same, groundingly familiar. John pushes forward, pressing Sherlock's legs closer to his chest with each movement, and Sherlock, sweating and trembling, begins to feel a burn bringing him to the edge of pain.

"Should I stop?" John asks and his eyes find his face.

They lock eyes, suddenly, unexpectantly, and his heart skips a beat in response to the sheer power of the bond they share. It knocks him right out of reality and brings him back with the renewed realisation that he is alive.

"Never."

John doesn't take his eyes off him again, but Sherlock has trouble doing the same when he reaches for his cock. The strokes are too light and too slow to satisfy (but what, at this point, would actually manage to satisfy if not everything at once?), but he can distantly feel, underneath the veil of magnifying pleasure, that John rolls his hips in tiny circles to the pace of his stroke. He is building up a rhythm, and when he is moving faster, Sherlock pushes back, causing John to thrust deeper with every push and pull and _oh, deeper_ , the burning slowly fades to be overshadowed by more pleasure, more pleasure sparking up from the inner walls of his very core, from the base of his spine.

But he can't break eye contact yet, gives his best to keep them open – because he is _seeing_ John now, how could he look away? – and now John looks like the one who is in pain, speeding up his pace. He is letting go of his throbbing cock, and Sherlock whines in protest, to put his hands on the back of his knees and give more tiny thrusts until he almost hits his prostate.

"Oh, _fuuuuck_. John, yes!"

John lets out an equal moan of approval and his thrusts grow faster and harder. Sherlock struggles to roll his hips in tune with those thrusts, a flame rising and flickering, telling him that he is closer, closer, _closer_ , little _oh_ s and long groans escaping his mouth.

"John, John, _John_..."

But it's not enough, Sherlock would have to snap in two for John to hit the spot like this, despite him going back and forth, and back and forth, and faster, _faster!_

"Please. Please!"

John seems to know what he needs, but makes a frustrated noise as he forces himself to stop moving. Breathless panting is filling the room as he tries to catch his breath to say something. "Hold onto the headboard."

Sherlock does as he tells him and shifts backwards a bit to grab the headboard with his arms. His back is sticking with sweat and the bed feels cold, suddenly, before John is near him again, pressing kisses to his belly. He has slipped out during the change of positions. His hands are sliding along the back of his thighs and underneath his arse to pull apart his cheeks. Sherlock shivers all over, so desperate now.

"Take me," he murmurs mindlessly.

"Yes."

John sits back on his heels and lifts Sherlock up by the hips. With one smooth thrust he is buried inside of him from tip to shaft, balls deep. Overwhelmingly perfect. His mouth is hanging wide open and his eyes are closed in concentrating.

"Oh, fuck me," he moans, fighting against the urge to bend Sherlock over and fuck him in earnest.

"Yes, _fuck me_." Sherlock is already too lost in pleasure, mumbling away without thinking.

But John groans and listens to him, bending down and finally, finally starts moving again. He builds up speed and pushes into him, he can feel his hard cock like the hotly burning key to all his cravings. He thrusts into him again, and again. And again, and again. _Harder_ , at a regular pace and yet, it always comes as a surprise when he, _ah, faster, deeper_. Sherlock clings to the headboard to keep himself alive, but he also uses it to push back around John, almost hitting it, almost and-

"Oh _God_!"

His body begins to shake from the enormous amounts of pure pleasure that comes together at the base of his spine and spreads all over his entire form and all he is. Now he is hitting it, _more, more_ , with almost every thrust, and Sherlock is so close, so close to orgasm.

"John, _oh_ _yes_ , John, oh, oh, _oh!"_

Muscles tremble, there is arousal pooling and with every, _ah_ , hit it gets closer to spilling over. But when it takes him, really takes his spine and bends it, settles in between his cheeks and crushes every muscle, every bone, settles behind his balls before it takes them, too, their fullness unbearable and everything throbs, throbs, when suddenly, _oh my Goood, yes, yes_ , this pool of arousal creates a giant wave that crashes down on him, runs over and inside him, and he is right. Fucking. There.

He comes untouched with John's name on his lips until it's all just  _Johhhn_ , and the whole world becomes the man he loves before everything turns into white noise. He continues to come longer and harder as John takes hold of his cock and strokes him through it, but he starts squirming, cries out once more, because it's too much, he's shivering all over. When he has finally stopped coming, he feels like he is never going to be able to move again. Not that he minded.

He feels so limp and weak now. His body is not attached to him anymore, it clearly can't be, he must be floating on some cloud in heaven. Minutes pass by that feel like hours, and he thinks he could sleep for days on end. In a rough tone, he manages to breathe out, "Did you?"

John gives him a warm smile and kisses the skin somewhere above his heart. "I didn't exactly want to overstimulate you by coming inside you, honey."

His cock gives another jerk at those words and the concept of this. Also, _honey_.

The with sweat glistening hair tickles his forehead when John brushes a curl out of his face with the back of his hand. "Although it was quite hard. With you being just … Wow, Sherlock. You're so intense, you're beautiful."

A silly smile steals onto his face. "Thank you. You, too."

And for a moment this is all they do. Staring into each other's each and smiling like idiots. Until something very hot and moist presses against Sherlock's thigh.

To feel the core of John's very arousal and of everything he is able to do to him, is allowed to, is meant to, pressed to him reawakens a craving that has been repressed within him since he has first noticed the way John walks _like that_.

"Are you good?" John asks before he presses a kiss just below his jar.

Sherlock wants to be. "No."

"No?" He is confused now, but still smiling.

"John, I need you," doesn't even care about how desperate he sounds. "I need you in my mouth, can I?"

For a moment now, John is motionless before he blows out a shuddering exhale. "Oh God, yes."

They swap positions and Sherlock lets his hands run up his thighs, his hands still shaking and his heart still pumping too fast. He has to put his head down, and his jaw lays above one of John's hipbones because he has trouble holding it up himself.

"Hmmh, give me a moment."

"'s alright," John replies in a throaty voice, but despite what he said his cock gives an obvious twitch as Sherlock's breath tickles the flesh where it's straining and hard against his belly.

One of Sherlock's hands, still too heavy for his weak limbs to heave, travels all the way up until his fingers close around his testicles. He gives them a slow massage and feels John breathing harder above him. From this perspective, being on eye level with it, his cock looks huge and it's almost overwhelming to look at it for too long. It's all flushed and thick, veins pressing against the skin and pulsate with every quick heartbeat, filling it with more arousal. The head of it is already slick with pre-cum, and Sherlock feels his own spent cock growing with renewed interest at the sight alone. When he presses one of his fingers into the skin just behind John's balls, he watches in fascination as it jumps once, twice, the pre-cum sticking to his skin like a twine.

He cannot seem to look away and doesn't plan to as he finally wraps his long fingers around his thickness, almost startled when it is so much hotter than expected. He closes his fist around the shaft, hears John gasp as he pulls upwards slowly, increasing the pressure just a little below the head.

"God, Sherlock."

He tries to thrust up into his fist, but Sherlock lets go of him again, causing him to make a frustrated noise exposing his obvious desires. Sherlock lifts his head and leans down between his legs until his lips ghost over his frenulum. When John pushes up against them, it almost seems like a question, and he inhales the scent of him that starts to cloud his mind. In the midst of his daze, he opens his mouth and licks one long stripe from shaft to tip.

John curses under his breath and wiggles his hips, nothing being quite enough. Insecurity manages to slip through and poke into his dizzy head for a second. He has never done this before (he thinks). But as he looks up at John, _his_ John, looking down at him with glassy blue eyes, face flushed, mouth slightly open, looks down at the large erection in front of him, all doubts leave him. He holds his cock up by its shaft, never breaking eye contact, and takes it into his mouth in one single move, as far in as he can.

"Oh!" John throws his head back and suddenly his hands are in Sherlock's hair, not pulling or pushing, just holding him there. It's incredibly hot for some reason, and he wants to encourage him to tug a little, just when he feels his gag reflex having one or two words to say about trying to take even more of him. He pulls it out carefully and the head slips out with a soft  _pop_.

"Is it good?" he asks, breathless.

"Hmmh, very. Don't stop."

This is all he needs to hear to take him in again, just the tip this time, and out again. He adds a little bit of suction every time he bobs his head up, uses his tongue to twirl around the glans when he bobs down. John has been reduced to loud huffs of breath and a long string of, "Yeah, yeah, this is so good, just like that, honey, yeah," and the petname doesn't confuse him anymore as much as it encourages him to suck harder.

"Oh, yeah, more, Sherlock, _Sherlock!"_

The louder he is, the more it turns Sherlock on, regrowing arousal making him moan. It hits him like the head of John's cock hits the back of his mouth that he is really in his _mouth_ , the huge size of him, the scent of him, his precome, and just imagining him coming down his throat is so hot a thought that he feels the vibrations of his long moans around his lips. Seems like John feels them, too.

John lets out a seemingly endless, shuddering breath he's giving voice to, his legs begin to shake and Sherlock's strokes with his hand speed up to match with the bobbing of his head. He presses his tongue against his slid, and the sound John makes is one close to an outcry of sheer pleasure.

"So close, Sherlock, I'm- _yeeees!"_

The salty taste of pre-cum floods his mouth and he absolutely loves it, hollows his cheeks around him, harder, just a bit more to-

"Sherlock-"

He is startled by the sensation of cum hitting the back of his throat and pulls back instinctively, the other half of it squirting across his cheek. He runs his finger through it, then realises John is watching him, sweat glistening on his forehead and neck, drying around blond chest hair, and all he can think is, "This man had me and I had him," and look at him in wonder. He doesn't avert his gaze as he takes his finger into his mouth to lick John's cum off it.

John lets out a grunt at the sight of him and spreads his arms out. "Come here."

Sherlock, exhausted as he is now, almost lets himself fall into his arms and sighs a sigh of absolutely lightheaded relief. "I love you, too."

Relief, relief, his whole body feels lighter, his heart having lost one big thorn. For long minutes they just lie there and breathe together, smiling like the perfect couple of idiots they are. Sherlock listens to the beating of John's heart only inches away from him, calculating the beats per minute and thinking about nothing else at all.

"Maybe we should clean up a bit."

Sherlock honestly doesn't know what John is talking about, even though his cum smeared cheek is currently sticking to John's chest, the rest of their bodies drying with the mixture of sweat and semen. He doesn't think he has ever been more comfortable in his entire life. And never happier.

He thinks about their bodies sticking together forever, someday growing into one, so that they can never leave this place. Probably not as romantic in practice as his blissed out mind tells him it would be right now, but that doesn't change the fact that he wants to stay here with John for as long as possible. Getting up is not an option yet.

"Hmmh. Let's not."

"We will regret this in the morning."

Sherlock raises his head to look at him, tracing his laugh lines with his eyes. His own expression, on the contrary, is dead serious. He needs to get this right. "John. There is no way on earth I'm going to regret this in the morning."

John blinks at him a few times. Then he kisses him on the mouth, deeply. Deeply, like he loves him. "Good. Brilliant. _Fantastic_."

He might not just be talking about their night right now. Sherlock blushes.

He holds onto him like he was the rest of his life (he hopes he can be) and he has no idea how it happens, but somehow they fall asleep just as they are (sticky, disgusting, _in love_ ) and that night Sherlock Holmes dreams of the solar system, starry skies, the sun and the moon, and shooting stars, burning him up like a firework that he knows is so beautiful that it could be the last thing he would want to see before he dies. But hopefully, he doesn't have to yet.

And in this night, he learns to truly, wholeheartedly appreciate the miracles and wonders of the solar system.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The final chapter will be an epilogue.


	8. Epilogue - Twinkle, Twinkle All the Night

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _What has happened to him? How have they started to be this now? When will he have to wake up?_
> 
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> _Please don't ever wake up._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So here we are then, at the end of this little story. Well, when I say little... I have never intended for this to get so long (or even mulit-chaptered, back when I planned it) but what can I say? This is what becomes of my stories when I don't really plan them through. That said, I have most certainly never expected to get so much love and feedback on this. I just want to thank all of you for reading, commenting, leaving kudos... Writing this was a pleasure (but took me a while at times), and I'm kinda proud it has a proper ending now, and that I could tie the story up a bit in the way I wanted to.
> 
> Who knows, maybe we'll read again! (I have some more stories and no sense of subtle self-promotion. *awkwardly flies into the sun*)
> 
> Enjoy the epilogue!

They woke up very late in the morning, at noon almost, and spent an inappropriate long amount of time just looking at each other. Softly first (and Sherlock found the ocean in John's eyes again. _Fascinating._ ) and then with broad, silly grins on their faces like this was a joke only the two of them could understand. _Love_. They cuddled for what seemed like hours, and Sherlock found out he has a constant and unsatiable need for touching John and being touched by him. None of them really minds.

But at some point they had to get up (Sherlock's arse still felt a little sore from their night's activities, which probably shouldn't have excited him so much) as Mrs Hudson called for them from the kitchen. She looked so much happier than he had last remembered her, mothering a lonely Sherlock Holmes in his flat. But today she has smiled with eyes almost sparkling as she looked back and forth between the two of them while talking about the newest rumours regarding the Prime Minister or some such gossip. At least she has brought them scones and tea.

He almost felt scandalous, sitting so close next to John on the kitchen table that their knees touched below it, but John, to only his own surprise, proudly took Sherlock's hand in his and interlaced their fingers to have their hands resting calmly between both their plates. Mrs Hudson's wrinkles only deepened as her smile started to look like it had to be painful handling this huge amount of happiness. Later, before she went downstairs again, she asked if they have had a domestic recently. Sherlock was very confused, but when she was gone John explained to him that she might have been referring to yesterday, because apparently their make-up sex was always especially loud. Sherlock blushed so deeply that the colour of his skin matched that of the stabbing wound of a homocide's victim. He was sure that John must be very proud of that metaphor, since it was him who told him so with that silly grin on his face he has fallen for.

So here they are now, a couple of hours later, making out on the sofa. Sherlock isn't able to keep his hands off John since he knows he is allowed to do all of these things now. But luckily, he doesn't have to. John very happily lets Sherlock climb on his lap for him to be snogged senseless. Physical intimacy with him fills a crack in his heart, and the feelings of this are so new and yet strangely familiar to him. It's so perfect, too perfect almost, to _have_ John. To feel his muscular thighs between his own, feel his hands run up his back, the back of his neck, into his hair, and down again. Yes, all so perfect. But there is one thought – one annoyingly persistent thought – that just won't stop pulling strings in the back of his mind, bringing him down to earth when he only wants to be in John Heaven.

_What has happened to him? How have they started to be this now? When will he have to wake up?_

_Please don't ever wake up._

With a sigh he gets off John's lap and lets himself fall onto the sofa cushions next to him.

John sighs too, but his sounds a lot more worried rather than frustrated. "What's the matter, honey? Still feeling weird?"

Sherlock decides not to answer, because he doesn't know how, and to just let his head sink down to be held by John's shoulder. John immediately slides his fingers into his curls, and with short nails he strokes his sensitive scalp. Sherlock can hold himself back before he would start purring like a cat. They stay in this position for a while, his boyfriend ( _boyfriend!_ ) being very patient with him, until he thinks he has finally found the words to form a question that won't make him sound like he has gone completely nuts this time.

"John. Would you … mind? I mean. Do you want to tell me the story of how we became … _we_?"

John chuckles beside him. He can feel the vibrations of it, and it grounds him a little.

"Alright," he says. "I think. Yeah, I think I can do that."

The hand in his hair disappears, and Sherlock is just about to complain as John is putting his arm around his shoulder to hold him closer. _Okay_ , he thinks, _I can live with that, too._

But before John starts, he takes a deep breath. Sherlock knows why. He knows what he is asking of him, and he wouldn't ever do so if he didn't think it absolutely necessary. He needs to hear it, and he needs to hear of from _him_.

"So after you- after you _fell_." He exhales, pausing for a moment. His brave, brave John. "I was in a pretty bad place, as you know. I moved out of Baker Street and all, and after several months without any contact to … well, basically anyone or anything that would remind me of what happened, Greg offered to drop by my new flat and, you know, give me some things of yours. I think that, even back then, he knew. That's why it felt right to him that I should have your things. It wasn't very personal, some things from cases and all, but then, I guess that's what it made it so damn personal. There was a bit of us in this box, and- wow, I sound pretty silly now, don't I?"

Suddenly, Sherlock is so touched and taken aback by what John is describing to him, because he knows exactly what he means, he knows what it feels like to _miss_ someone just by looking at what one has started to look at as _theirs_ , that he can only lean into him further and put a kiss to the underside of his jaw to encourage him to go on.

"Right. So. Among all the things there was that video you made for me. You know, the one with the cheap excuse for why you couldn't come to my birthday dinner and said that none of my friends like me? But yeah, the uncut version of that video."

While John is talking, in Sherlock's head everything begins to slowly unfold to one string of events with his mind supplying pictures to scenes he couldn't have seen. He has it all in front of him, all in his mind's eye …

 

John sits on the sofa with his glass of self-pity and liquilised courage in hand, watching the screen of his television. He can't believe he is activily doing this to himself. Seeing Sherlock again after all this time, not on pictures or bloody dry news reports ruining his reputation, fooling the world into believing he hadn't been the best and the wisest man London would ever get to know, is nothing he can stand without his new best friend. _Alcohol_. He remembers having once thought Sherlock Holmes was like a drug to him. Well, look at his replacement now. This isn't even ironically funny anymore.

When he watches Sherlock complaining about dinner with people, watches him stating how all those people hate him, he smiles. Watches Sherlock ramble a little about how thinking up an excuse was worse than no excuse at all ( _only lies have details_ ), but then he has to close his eyes. And now? Now the great Sherlock Holmes doesn't know what to do.

"I can tell you what you can do. You can stop being dead."

 _Drink_. Ah, the burning should help. It doesn't.

"Okay," Sherlock replies through the screen, and John looks back at him, startled.

Great, it's happening again. Just great. _He isn't talking to you, Watson. Keep it together._

Him in the armchair is the last thing he has wanted to see. It's almost too much. Listening to Sherlock wishing him _many happy returns_. This last bit is the cut video message that he already knows. He remembers the first time he saw this and thought that, _yes, maybe that essay that prick gave me for my birthday wasn't so far off,_ and _yes, I would much rather spend the day with him,_ and _damnit, I'm definitely in trouble for liking him so much_. And now he will never be able to tell him so.

The doorbell rings. He pauses the video and looks around. He doesn't know what he has expected to find. Putting his friend called whiskey on the table, he stands up to go and open the door. The person waiting for him on the other side is … No. No way, no way, _no fucking way_ , he tells himself. The last sentence from the video starts repeating itself in his head like a deadly mantra.

_I’m going to be with you again very soon, I’m going to be with you again very soon, I’m going to be with you again very soon._

John has trouble breathing, has trouble telling his heart to not combust behind his ribcage. _This can't just be the whiskey, can it?_

"Hello, John."

"You- you're." Breathe, John. Breathe, just breathe. "You're-"

Sherlock's blue, lively (always so lively, _fuck_ ) eyes were staring down at him intensily, and he, too, takes a deep breath. "Not. Dead," he finishes. They have always completed each other so perfectly.

Still, right now he feels like he should very well be allowed to murder him with his own hands and bury his dead body right in front of the grave at which he has mourned him a million times.

"No, don't do this to me, I swear, if this is... This can't be real. You-"

There isn't enough oxygen in the room for his brain to keep on functioning, or so he feels, and he is sure what he is feeling right now is neither rage nor relief but the threatening signs of a panic attack. Sherlock stretches his hand out to reach for him, maybe to catch him if he fell, and it requires all the strength still left in his body to not slam it away.

"Don't. If you touch me now, I will either punch you in the face or lose consciousness."

"John," he says again, and John can't believe he is letting him do this.

He watches his best friend sink to his knees in front of him, actually _kneeling_ in front of him, holding in both his hands a bouquet of flowers. (Has he had that with him the whole time? He hasn't noticed.) It's a bunch of pink belladonnas. He knows this because these are the flowers he used to buy to put them down on top of the gravestone with his name on it. Sometimes he'd go for yellow, sometimes blue, but mostly … pink. The colour brought back memories of better times.

"You … bought me flowers."

"Yes."

"Belladonna. I always bought you-"

"Yes. I know."

"Because they are so highly poisonous and I thought you would've liked that."

 _"John_."

He has said his name for the third time now, and John realises that his brain is now activily refusing to process anymore. For the moment, it has narrowed down to facts about Atropa belladonna when, in fact, it should finally start to _see_ Sherlock, being there, right in front of him in the door frame on his knees. He also realises that he is now in the perfect position to kick him in his pretty face. Sherlock's voice sounds unusually thin and breakable as he says those next words.

"Please, John, forgive me. For all the hurt that I caused you."

As he looks down at him, their eyes lock. Sherlock looking up under black lashes, having tears – actual tears! - in his bright blue eyes. _Quite unfair_ , he finds himself thinking, _that this fucking idiot dares to be so beautiful._ John is at a loss for words.

"This is a trick," John murmurs, but doesn't really mean it. His brain is just wonderfully empty. "You're just trying to get me to say something nice."

Sherlock shakes his head, huffing a laugh and looking away. _Embarassed?_

"Not this time."

When he looks up to him again, he seems to have found his courage. There is a sudden air around him, an aura, announcing that something will follow now, something that will change the world forever.

"John, there's something I should say. I've meant to say, always, and then never have..."

He closes his eyes once, and blinks them open again. It wakes them both up from a dream that never was.

"It's always you, John Watson. It has always been and will always be you. For me. I want to be with you. I have always wanted that, and I have never dared to believe myself. My life has improved so much since I first met you, you have saved my life the day I saw you, and I am better when you are by my side. John, you keep me right. I've known it for a while now, but it took me so long to solve this mystery. To solve _you_. But when I had to leave you behind..."

They both swallow down a lump, not needing the reminder of wounds still so fresh.

"...I have begun to learn what it means to hurt. Pain and loss and heartbreak. Only from missing you so much. And through that pain, I fear, you have saved me again. I just- I needed to- to survive to see you again. Even if that means you will never want to see _me_ again after this. But if you'll still have me, John," His eyes linger on him with the intensity of a thousand suns, "I will never leave you again."

Moments pass by around them, but the world stands still in the space of that door frame. A door frame that is still working as an invisible wall, keeping them apart. After the most unexpected and most deeply romantic love confession he is ever going to receive, John is faced with the most difficult and at once the simplest question in the whole universe: What the hell is he still doing here?

In the midst of a split second, he falls to his knees in front of Sherlock and pulls the love of his life so close to him that the flowers caught between them are unlikely to survive the impact. Luckily, only their berries are deadly poisonous.

"God, I've missed you so much." His voice is muffled by having his face buried in the fabric of Sherlock's coat. He is a little surprised to find he is crying, but when he looks up he sees that Sherlock is, too.

The detective looks at him with an expression so full of shock, as if John hugging him would have never been a possibility he could have reckoned with. But here they are.

John cups his face with gentle hands, telling him, "I love you," and finally, _finally_ , kissing him like it had always meant to be. He can hear Sherlock sobbing through the kiss, but his lips are soft and he tastes so much like home that John wants to stab himself in the heart for ever having left, but then, wasn't it Sherlock who had left?, and he's done, just for this beautiful moment, so done thinking about this tragedy. He is kissing the man he loves. The stab in his heart that he can already feel is love. And it hurts so good.

When he draws back, he runs his thumbs over this incredible pair of cheekbones to dry Sherlock's face from tears. "And yes, of course," he whispers, trying not to break both of them,

" _I forgive you_."

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> PS: Yes, _John Heaven_ is the only heaven Sherlock will accept because he's a whiney bean. Thank you for your attention.


End file.
